


Your Soul I Pray to Keep

by thesnowyswan



Series: Your Soul I Pray to Keep 'verse [1]
Category: Emmerdale
Genre: M/M, mob boss/copper!au, warning: sexual assault of a secondary character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-11-13
Packaged: 2019-05-24 23:41:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 14
Words: 23,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14964459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesnowyswan/pseuds/thesnowyswan
Summary: A mini-series that came out of one ficlet which was that character A was a mob boss and character B was a policeman and one of them shot the other.Aaron is a policeman, Robert is a shady arse businessman and they're super married. This is them trying to navigate their worlds and their marriage.Please note: There is a discussion of sexual assault within this fic of a secondary character, so please proceed with caution.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was asked to post to AO3 for bookmarking purposes, so here we are!

Only the most loyal of loyal lackies know where Robert goes when the business is done. When he’s tucked away the coke and the hash and bandied up the massive piles of money that give him that spring in his step. 

“Sir?” Gerry opens the driver’s side door to his porsche and Robert unhooks his gun from his belt and chucks it on the passenger’s seat.

Gerry Roberts, seventeen, spent time in Youth Offenders on a bogus arson charge. Robert likes him because he’s mouldable. And his first instinct when things went to shit with the coppers in today’s raid was to grab Robert and throw himself in his path. Knocked Robert’s shot to hell, but saved him from any harm.

“You did good today, Gerry,” Robert digs into his pocket for a roll of fifties. He tosses it up and Gerry catches it as Robert slides into his car. 

*

Robert’s home is a conservative 1.5 million house conversion because his husband abhors money and all its comforts. 

“Honey, I’m home.” He puts on a voice and drops his keys in the dish. 

His husband is in the kitchen with a bag of ice and a face like thunder, “You fucking shot me, you dick.”

Robert’s heart falls through his feet, but he sees Aaron holding his arm and the bloodied bandage on his bicep.

“New bloke, try’na be a hero,” Robert grabs Aaron’s waist with one hand and hovers his other over the ice. “God–”

“It’s fine, Robert,” Aaron tilts his head to the side and twists his mouth into a small smile, “Turnabout’s fair play.”

“What did your boss say?”

Aaron sighs, he’s only been a DI for a few months and he’s had to scrape by on shady arse bullshit and deflection to keep Robert out of the line of fire. 

“Definitely doesn’t think we’re shagging anymore.”

Robert tugs on the glint of silver that peeps out of Aaron’s shirt where he’s unbuttoned it. His ring hangs low on the chain under the fabric. Robert wears his ring because no one questions his personal life. No one would dare. And no one would expect Aaron. Moral, upstanding, _righteous_ Aaron. But they’ve never seen what he’d do for love. For Robert.

“It’s getting too close,” Robert rubs his nose against Aaron’s cheek, nudging him to turn his face for a kiss. “The sharks are circling.”

Aaron stops just short of his lips, “And what? I should just let them go after ya?”

The ice thunks in the sink and Aaron keeps his back turned when Robert slides his hands over his shoulders. 

“Let them run at me, I can take it.” Robert pulls on Aaron’s collar, moving it so that he can get at the soft skin where his beard ends. He loves the change in texture, rough to smooth, so much like Aaron himself. 

“It was just a graze, Robert.” Aaron knocks him back and turns around again, bad arm against his body, good arm pulling one of his belt loops.

“You never took risks like this when you worked for me.” He points out. 

Aaron had been a runner once upon a time. A gobby little shit with too much attitude and not enough focus. He had been glorious and Robert hadn’t stood a chance. As time moved on, Robert ascended and Aaron became more disillusioned. It was Robert’s growing empire that bought Aaron out and not once has he looked back. Robert does because Robert knows the kind of men Aaron is out there facing. He pays them well enough.

“I don’t work for you now though, do I?” Aaron pushes and pulls him before letting go to grab a can from the fridge. “We’re on opposite sides of the same shit. Today it was me, tomorrow it could be you.”

Robert doesn’t ignore the tremor in Aaron’s voice, “I’m not saying don’t be a copper. I’m saying don’t be the first bloke in. Don’t make me bury you.”

 _Don’t make me bury you_ is _I love you_ in the oldest way they know how to say it. In that time way back when. This time. All time. 

“Get out of the game then.” Aaron flings back half-heartedly. Robert smiles because as much as Aaron won’t give up the police, Robert won’t give up his business. 

Robert unbuttons his shirt, “For a night, maybe.”

His husband’s eyes follow his hands and Robert knows he’s forgotten the pain in his arm. 

“I’m sorry I shot you.” He makes himself sound as repentant as he can.

Aaron takes a minute step forward, “Show me.”

In their bed, there are no sides, no power plays, no right and wrong. Robert holds Aaron’s ring in his hand and that’s the only thing that matters. Not the roles they play and call work. 

Aaron gets up first because he has the early shift, he kisses Robert goodbye while his head is still on the pillow, “Try not to shoot me today, ta.”

“Mmm, bring me pizza later and I won’t.”

Robert grunts when his arse is slapped and he pulls the duvet further up, “You’re a bad man.”

Maybe that’s the truth of it too, Robert doesn’t know or much care. He loves Aaron and that’s all there is to it. Even if he is one of the boys in blue.


	2. Chapter 2

After the little show where Aaron got his most recent attractive flesh wound, his higher ups have been leaning heavily on the Hotten lot to ‘take down the criminal element’ aka the CEO of Rug Tree Bonds. Mysterious, conniving and dastardly. Or so they say. Aaron has to try not to piss himself laughing while he pours his coffee and one of the job worth’s keeps trying to push him into heading back out to the club, a front for unhanded dealings, of course. 

“Tell me desk sergeant, how do you know that Drive is the front for a criminal organisation?” Aaron stirs in one sugar out of habit and mentally kicks himself. Tea is the far superior drink in his opinion.

Finn Barton is a slight chap who has a chip on his shoulder the size of the Dales trying to prove himself against his other more successful brothers. Everyone’s heard of them. Aaron has even met Ross once or twice. Couldn’t give a toss about him. Finn though, Finn is good people.

“Well–you got shot.”

Aaron pretends to weigh it up. He did, and he and Robert had serious words and make up sex the night it happened. 

“By who? We don’t know. We don’t know if that’s their base of operations, we don’t know if that’s even connected to Rug Tree. All we know is that it’s run by some hoity-toity toff boy in a posh car. He could have just as easily ‘gone off’ at me.”

Robert would not appreciate the alluding of his sexual prowess or his name to be tarnished in such a way but shit, Aaron is sick of pussyfooting around him. Robert said they could take a run at him and he could handle it. Maybe he’s right. Bring him into it to shove him out.

Finn bites his lip and lets it go, “Don’t you just get a funny feeling from the owner?”

Aaron gets a feeling, sure. His heart pounds and his chain shifts.

“Robert Sugden is a pretty boy who likes fast cars and fast girls, I’d be surprised if he had the brains to pull it off.”

Anyone who has seen Robert has seen his ring, but none take it seriously. None but the chosen few who know the truth. Robert told him once that the men speculate that he has a little wife somewhere who knits booties and cries big tears for her big bad husband who puts it around. Years ago, that might have been true, when they were friends who hugged that little bit too long after a job. Lingered too long between the hard press of their bodies. But Robert came for him. Stole kisses like the thief he was, only to give Aaron back more, more than he could cope with. Tripped him into falling in love with a criminal and never being able to let him go.

Aaron prides himself on his virtue, his beliefs, and yet, he still rolls around in the mud with the likes of Robert J. Sugden. Anyone else doing what Robert does, Aaron would nail them to the wood. It’s like love made him blind, deaf and dumb and he willingly partakes in it.

 _So I can keep him_.

“I’m going over there.” Finn knocks Aaron’s shoulder and he’s forced to chase after him.

“Barton!”

*

Drive opens at 9 so there’s just a few extra staff milling about. Robert is up in the office, Aaron knows, because he has the books - all legit - to tend to for the month.

He comes down from his throne room, in regal purple, white shirt and black tie, and he welcomes them with open arms.

“Detective Inspector Dingle, how can I help you?”

Robert is putting on a show and Aaron wants to slap him for being a full on twat. Finn seems to be set harder against Robert the more he pretends. He turns his attention to Barton and offers his hand, “And you are?”

Aaron steps in, “Barton, he’s got a couple of questions for you, about the shooting that happened here.”

“Shooting?”

Robert’s eyes are faux doe-eyed and if Aaron could stomp on his foot he would.

“I was grazed by a bullet here when we were following up on a lead. I didn’t get a clear look at the shooter, Barton thinks you might have.”

Robert has the sense to settle down after that, “I’m sorry, as I told DI Dingle, I was tackled by one of my employees and all I could see was the ceiling.”

Finn steps forward and Robert frowns, “You’re lying.”

“I’m really not.” Robert gestures with his palms up and Finn looks down at them, Robert’s ring.

“Your other half know what you’re up to?”

There’s a shadow that crosses Robert’s face. Imperceptible to anyone but Aaron, he thinks. Robert doesn’t take threats against Aaron well. He never has.

“I don’t like what you’re implying.” Robert steps back, his geniality benched. It’s what Finn was gunning for. “My marriage is nothing if not happy.”

His eyes flick to Aaron and he feels himself nod. He is happy. The happiest he’s ever been.

Finn pushes, “Working in a club every night with all sorts of women wanting all sorts of attention?”

Robert folds his arms, “Irrelevant.”

“ _Really_.”

Robert leans forward, getting in Finn’s face, “I don’t need other women. I chose the person I want to be with for the rest of my life. And after fifteen years we still fuck like crazy. Stephen, show Mr Barton and DI Dingle the door.”

*

If anything, it gives Finn something to sink his teeth into. Robert showed his belly when Finn jabbed at Aaron. Or the concept of Aaron.

“What do we know about Sugden’s wife?” Finn asks as he loosens his tie on the way back to the car.

Aaron hates this. Hates this choice that he has to make. To live the life _he_ wants, he has to lie. Never proud that he’s Robert’s husband.

“Nothing. Nothing even says he has a wife. No marriage certificate, no paper trail”, _nothing legal anyway_ , “if there’s someone, he keeps them well hidden.”

Aaron starts the engine, “Do you think this is my first day on the job? That I didn’t search Sugden within an inch of his life? _I got shot_ , Barton, not you.”

Finn looks at him and then down.

“I get that you want to solve a big case, but this, this ain’t it.”

“He’s a liar, sir.” It’s a small and quiet voice and it makes Aaron sigh. He isn’t going to let this go.

“Maybe so, but until he’s caught up in one, leave him alone.”

*

Robert looks sheepish when he gets in later that night. He knows he overstepped the mark, let his teeth show when he shouldn’t. Aaron has a double shot of 20-year-old bourbon in one of the fancy glasses Robert likes and he’s nursing it like he would a cheap one: down the hole in one.

“Aaron…”

“If they come for you,” Aaron stands up, leaving the glass on the coffee table, “and I lose you. I’ll kill you.”

He goes to bed, alone, and he’s grateful. He wakes up and his head is on Robert’s chest and he’s even more grateful. His eyes seek out the bullet wound over Robert’s heart and Aaron steels himself against whatever is coming. Because he’s a good man now. He doesn’t know what kind of man he’ll be by the end of it.


	3. Chapter 3

Robert is in the doghouse, there’s no two ways about it. The sound of utter defeat in his husband’s voice before he went to bed last night will probably haunt him for a good while yet. _Don’t make me bury you_.

Normally, they can both get away for a quick lunch off the beaten track. Since his promotion, Aaron has had to step up his shirt and tie game and Robert lives for that hour where he gets to admire Aaron all smartened up. The curve of his arse is magnificent and denied to him.

**Too dangerous. See you at home. x**

Robert huffs and Gerry shifts. He’s such a people pleaser that any discomfort in Robert sends him into a tailspin.

“We have to show our transparency.” He muses aloud. That kid, Barton, he thinks he’s got his hooks into something but he hasn’t. He just set Robert’s nose out of joint because Robert loves Aaron. To dismiss what he feels for his husband is a hanging offence in his book. “Invite them to the party tonight.”

“The one with the–” Gerry stops when Robert glares at him. The drug deal? Yeah, sure. Robert has done worse. Maybe he can even get back into Aaron’s good graces with some good behaviour. 

*

Aaron doesn’t agree.

“What are you doing?” He demands as he stomps around their bedroom, pulling out a black shirt from his side of the wardrobe.

He plays innocent, “A gesture of good faith?”

“And when your wife doesn’t turn up?!”

“My wif–? Why would my wife show up?” Robert tries to stop Aaron from pacing but he gets pushed to sit on the bed.

“Barton thinks you have some poor wife you’re constantly fucking over with your shit.” Aaron breathes deeply and unbuckles his belt. Robert tries to grab the ends of it but Aaron bats him away.

“He can search all he likes for my wife. I’m sure she would have been lovely if I hadn’t met and married my _husband_. Who I most definitely don’t fuck over.”

Aaron makes a face, _oh, don’t you start_.

“Speaking of…”

“Fuck off, Robert.” Aaron tosses it off like someone else would say shut up. 

Robert realises he’s no closer to making amends with Aaron than he was before all this. He stands up and holds onto Aaron in such a way that he can’t shake him off. He has to accept Robert rubbing his back, cuddling him in close and rubbing their cheeks together. It’s a Pavlovian response that makes Robert crave Aaron’s touch. To feel peace when he does. The only bit of stability in his mad, dark world. Aaron’s fingers press into his jaw and Robert sighs, weight lifted from his chest. 

Until they push him away.

“You started this shitshow, you finish it.” Aaron slaps his face gently and carries on getting ready. 

*

Robert puts on his most expensive dark blue suit and picks out the Audi. Aaron has a basic little 1.6 Golf he loves and he ducked out while Robert was putting on his watch. An anniversary gift for their tenth year together. He knows he’s doing nothing for his image, he’s playing into the role of a shady businessman but he’s always believed in hiding in plain sight. Control the variables you can. Forget about what you can’t. 

For all his pains. Aaron is on his side. His heart won’t let him be otherwise. 

Robert arrives and he heads up to the VIP section to look for Aaron. He’s hard to find, his love of black on black trying to blend him in but Robert knows. Robert knows the width of his shoulders, the power in his stance as that scrap of an excuse tries to lead Robert’s Aaron down a garden path. He’s surprised he didn’t see it. Thick rimmed glasses changed out for contact lenses, Finn Barton is the gentle sort that Aaron would have broken in two if he had ever loved another. 

He pushes his way down to them and Barton’s back goes rigid when he sees Robert. Oh, yes, it’s written all over him. That tiny bit of hero worship bound up in wanton desire. It’s faint, of course, Barton is a professional, but he has looked at Robert’s husband and found him beautiful.

“DI Dingle, a word?” Robert shouts over the music. Aaron frowns but touches his colleague’s elbow before following Robert out towards the bogs. 

Robert doesn’t know how to do this. Be in Aaron’s bad books. Not really. He doesn’t know how to feel knowing that someone else works so close to the only man he’s ever loved. He puts his hand on Aaron’s chest, where he knows his ring is and pushes him back against the wall. It’s a quiet corridor, kept so by men standing at the archway to the loos.

“Robert.”

He shakes his head. It’s nonsensical. Aaron is his, they made vows. But he knows that’s not why he’s scared. He’s scared that Aaron will choose morality over him. That his love no longer outweighs his deeds. That a better man might whisper such things in his ear and Aaron will listen. So he traps Aaron with a kiss. One that sets his body alight and has Aaron running his fingers through the back of his hair. One where their mouths catch and slip with spit and moans and Aaron leans back into the side alcove after Robert lets him go. 

The lights flash and illuminate Aaron’s confusion as he drags his thumb over Robert’s lips. Robert hasn’t felt the need to possess Aaron like this in years. To consume his every thought as much as he does Robert’s. 

“Sir,” Gerry calls from the edge of the throng of people. _Business, duty, right, wrong_.

“Fuck all of them, Aaron, it’s you and me,” Robert whispers against his husband’s neck before he bites him harshly. 

If Aaron stays there, Robert doesn’t know. He has things to do, people to see. 

*

Robert makes it back home before Aaron. He opens a beer and sips it while sitting on their kitchen table. 

Aaron opens and closes the door, quiet as a mouse.

“I love you,” Robert tells him and Aaron looks at him with a gentle smile. 

“Was that what that was about?”

Robert offers him the bottle and Aaron takes it, swigging it before putting it down next to Robert’s thigh, “I don’t like when we fight.”

“We’re not fighting, Robert, I just–” Aaron sighs and rubs his hands up and down Robert’s trousers. “–don’t like not having all the cards.”

“Don’t we always have them?”

Aaron shakes his head, “Not this time. Finn is idealistic. Eager.”

Robert hums negatively and Aaron pinches his thigh, continuing: “He could make trouble for us. You.”

“Fuck _me_. I can handle him. Both his brothers have tried to nail me and here I am.” Robert curls his legs around the backs of Aaron’s to pull him in, “But that one. He’s gay and he fancies you.”

“Shut up.”

Robert tries to catch Aaron’s eye, “I’m serious.”

Aaron looks him dead centre, “I love you.”

“I know. Doesn’t mean I can’t be jealous. He gets to see you when I don’t. Know parts of you I don’t.”

“You know all of me, Robert.”

Robert pushes Aaron’s shirt where his heart is, “All of you?”

“ _Yeah_.”

*

Robert ends up with Aaron’s shirt covering his groin when Aaron grabs the beer bottle from the table again.

“Wear your ring,” Robert tells him. 

Aaron looks back at him, “What?”

“I want you to wear your ring.”

“I can’t. You know I can’t.”

Robert gets up, lets the shirt drop, his ring forever leaving a band of white skin where it never sees the light of day. 

_Then who’s to say you’re mine_.


	4. Chapter 4

There’s a strange sort of detenté in the house. Aaron’s ring remains dangling from his neck and Robert greets him every morning and night with a kiss but he’s distant in a way he’s never been. He closes the door to their office, Robert’s office really, and Aaron doesn’t try to invade his space. For the most part, Aaron gets up, goes to work, does paperwork and comes home. A thrilling life to lead.

“Robert…” Aaron leans against the doorframe of their room.

There are two thick black ledgers on the bed. Policeman Aaron shouldn’t ever know about them, but Aaron, Robert’s other half, his _partner_ , knows exactly what they are. He thinks he’s being tested. Or punished. Robert is daring him to take the bait just to see where his loyalties lie.

Robert sits on the bed next to them, “What?”

Aaron takes his ring off its chain and slips it onto his finger, “Am I any more married to you?”

Robert lifts his chin up. Poised and cold like when he needs to negotiate, “It’s not the point, you’re my husband.”

“Answer the question: am I any more married to you?”

As if he detests the word, Robert grinds, “No.”

“We’re married because we choose to be,” Aaron steps into the room, still a distance away from Robert. “I don’t wear my ring because of the choices _you_ make.”

“So this is my fault?” Robert stands up abruptly. “I’m the big bad wolf that brings nothing but shame?”

Aaron sighs, “It’s no one’s fault. It’s how it is. How we made it.”

 _And the lies we told ourselves to justify it all_.

“But you can be proud because you’re sitting behind a badge and I’m–”

“A fraudulent, drug dealing, empire building crime lord? Who props it up with a legit club.”

“And _you_ married me.” Robert spits out at him like venom. Aaron doesn’t even know where this is coming from. He is under no illusions about his life, or his husband.

“Yeah, _I_ did.” Aaron tries to reach for Robert who shakes him off. “This is how we work, how we’ve always worked, Robert.”

“But you won’t wear your ring.”

The platinum band that so rarely graces his finger is bright in comparison to Robert’s, dulled by everyday wear.

“ _We_ decided it was too complicated. To easy to put two and two together,” Aaron had flipped the metal between his palms when Robert had suggested it to him. A way of protecting him as he entered the force. “I have loved you for nearly half my life, you think I give a fuck about a stupid ring?”

Robert looks down, silent.

“I do,” Aaron meets his husband’s eyes. “Of course, I do. But I’d rather have you.”

“Wow, who knew you were so romantic?” Robert jests, but his eyes are wet and he wraps his arms around Aaron’s shoulders and the tension finally starts to dissipate.

Aaron knows that Finn roped in Shankley to help him go after Robert, the two of them skulking around when they think Aaron isn’t looking. When Aaron went with Robert that night at the club and didn’t bring back any information, it set a divide between him and Barton. One Robert probably appreciates but it sets Aaron on edge.

“If I wanted rid of ya, I wasted a long time waiting to do it,” Aaron wipes his face on Robert’s shoulder. He isn’t crying but he has missed their closeness.

Robert nods, “Any progress?”

He shakes his head, “No. A bit of misdirection and pulling my weight around has him and Tracy benched.”

“Tracy?”

“Blonde, wears a lot of makeup,” Aaron looks down at his hand, his ring, and he leaves it on. He heads down to the kitchen and Robert follows him.

“I think I know her.”

“She’s not exactly stealthy,” Aaron opens the fridge and closes it again, Robert bumping into his back. “Did she–?”

Robert smiles and it’s a little bit smug but then it smoothes out into a kind of sadness, “Doesn’t matter. I missed you.”

“I wasn’t the one throwing a strop.”

“Shame on me for being upset,” It’s joke-y and there’s no bite to it but Aaron can’t help his glare.

“For the last time, I’m not having ya name tattooed on my arse.”

It’s a throwback to a different time. A simpler one. When Aaron wasn’t a copper and Robert was just starting out. They’d shag on this ugly tartan fold up bed and Robert would draw finger hearts on his bum where he’d sign his name. Even with all the money and all the power, Aaron has felt on more than one occasion between their ridiculously expensive sheets, Robert drawing his name on his bum still.

Robert laughs and Aaron feels a swell of relief.

“Let’s order a takeaway, I’m starving,” He opens the fridge again and it’s bare because they haven’t had a shop ordered this week.

Aaron automatically grabs the back of Robert’s head when he grabs him from behind and presses his nose against his neck.

 _I choose you, Robert, I always choose you_.


	5. Chapter 5

_How did it end up like this? Jesus, how did it end up like this?_

“Robert.”

 _Aaron_.

Robert turns, gun in hand, and he’s sorry. He’s so fucking sorry.

“Just put it down, we can fix it.”

“No, we can’t.”

“Robert, please.” Aaron’s voice shakes, he’s begging, but Robert feels numb.

He ignores every alarm bell going off in his head and strides forward to steal a kiss. He barely touches Aaron’s mouth with his own before he opens in recognition, his lips moving to catch on Robert’s. He pushes harder, other hand digging into the small of Aaron’s back to hold him against his body. Robert can feel Aaron’s tears before he tastes them, how Aaron grabs his face as they stand, leaning forehead to forehead when they part, swaying completely in sync.

“I’m sorry, you have to believe me,” Robert whispers.

Aaron nods his head, “I do.”

His own hand cupping Aaron’s face, he smiles, Aaron returning it, only it’s a pale, watery imitation of his happy smile.

Robert pulls the trigger.

Aaron holds his gut as Robert lets him slide down his front. Heat fades into cold as he closes his eyes. He’s gone. Aaron’s gone.

 

 

 

 

He opens his eyes in bed, his heart jackhammering as he flails, Aaron grabbing his wrist to stop it from hitting him in the face again.

“Robert! Rob! Jesus, what is it?” Aaron’s grip is like a vice and Robert struggles against it until he realises he can’t get away.

“Aaron?”

“Yeah.”

It’s like he’s a deck of paper cards that flies in the face of a gust of wind. He collapses and hugs himself to Aaron’s chest. No bullet wounds to be found.

“You’re alright.” He mutters, mostly to himself as Aaron rubs the back of his head. Aaron pushes at Robert to try and get him to come back up, but Robert clings to him like a limpet and presses soft kisses to bare skin that tell him Aaron is still alive. Aaron stops struggling and just wraps his arms around Robert’s shoulders and waits for him to open up.

But he can’t.

“Robert—”

He fears that by saying it he will speak it into existence. The very thought of the notion gets him up from their bed and sends him into their en-suite with the door closed so that he can splash water on his face and stare at his own red-rimmed eyes.

The gun from his dream is the one he keeps in his bedside table. He never moves it from its place, hidden in a false bottom, because it only exists for the direst of emergencies. So dire that Aaron doesn’t even know it’s there.

 _It’s just a dream. Brought on by shit at work_.

He soaks his face again and opens the bathroom door.

Aaron is sitting on the edge of his side of the bed, fingers interlaced and hanging between his knees. He already raised his head up when the door snicked open.

Robert feigns laughter, “Bad dream.”

His husband doesn’t buy it for a second.

“I had a nightmare.” He admits and sits down by Aaron. “You died.”

 _I murdered you_.

“Okay.” Aaron offers his hand, palm up for Robert to hold, and he does, “But I’m still here.”

_For how long?_

“I know. Just scared me is all.”

Aaron tugs on his hand and Robert leans his head on his shoulder, feels a kiss pressed against his hair, “It’s been awhile.”

They both used to have nightmares after Robert was shot. Robert’s were never for himself. He feared the one who shot him coming back and taking Aaron from him. His fear almost ruined them because he wanted so badly to wrap Aaron up in cotton wool that he was suffocating him. This is not that, so he doesn’t understand why now. He accidentally shot Aaron weeks ago and slept like a baby cuddled up to him. So why is it now that he dreaming of coldly putting a bullet in his husband’s belly?

“It’s okay, let’s go back to bed.” Robert untangles himself from Aaron and gets up to go to his side of the bed.

Aaron doesn’t move so Robert fluffs their duvet and makes a show of folding himself up under it.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

“Nothing,” Robert’s voice remains even, “it was one silly nightmare, come back to bed.”

Aaron pulls up the duvet and slides under it. Robert makes a space for himself along Aaron’s side, tucking his arm around his waist and laying his head on his shoulder. He gives Aaron’s shoulder a little kiss and rubs his cheek on it before letting out a big sigh of relief.

Slowly, Aaron begins to relax, the rise and fall of his chest slows, his breathing evens. Asleep, Robert pulls him in and lets his own tears silently fall and hopes that the wetness doesn’t wake him back up.

It doesn’t. Tired and headache-y, Robert joins him, exhaustion drowning him as much as his tears.

 

 

 

The sun is glaring when Robert eventually peels his eyes open. He’s alone in bed, he often is when he wakes up, but he hears movement downstairs and he checks his phone for the date. Wednesday, Aaron’s day off in the current rota. Normally he’d get up to see if Aaron was cooking a fry up and if not, make breakfast himself, but instead, he stays where he is. Hiding in the goose down and pretending the world doesn’t exist.

“Are you ill?” Aaron asks from the doorway. Or that’s where Robert assumes he is, he’s got his head under the quilt because he can’t be bothered to get up and close the curtains again.

He frees himself with a large inhale of fresh air. Aaron has a plate in hand, knife and fork in the other, because he’s brought Robert breakfast in bed. “You didn’t come down. Don’t want your food to get cold.”

They have an ottoman thing at the end of their bed that they keep spare towels and bed sheets in and Aaron leaves his breakfast on there before disappearing. Not without a long, inspecting look, but he doesn’t say anything, so Robert takes the reprieve, and the breakfast, back to his bed fort.

It’s a full works job, including grilled tomatoes that just ooze when Robert rolls them over with his fork. Aaron’s worried. If he brings Robert a cup of tea in the next ten minutes then it might be the most worried he’s been in months. Oddly, it’s one of the things Robert loves about Aaron. He doesn’t hover like he does. He just does things. Irons Robert’s shirts even though he hates it. Brings in a certain packet of crisps Robert enjoys. Lets Robert know that he loves him and he’s there.

Plate clean, Robert slinks down the stairs to put it in the sink. Aaron is sitting on the settee with his iPad looking like he’s busy when he’s really watching Robert’s every move. Robert flicks the kettle on and goes over Aaron and gives him a kiss on his cheek.

“Thank you.” He tries to infuse the words with love and kisses Aaron’s forehead before he goes back to get cups from the cupboard. “Tea?”

“Ta.” Aaron puts the tablet down and gets up to come and stand behind Robert, cuddling up against his back much like Robert did the other night.

It’s like a thunderbolt through his brain, that image, Aaron’s resigned face right before Robert shot him and it makes him grab Aaron’s arms around his waist. Robert ignores the boiling water and turns himself around in Aaron’s embrace, fights to lift his head and kiss his lips with the intensity that he feels. Aaron lets him, for a second, before he starts to pull away and Robert gives chase, pinning him against the countertop on the opposite side. 

“Rob—”

Aaron’s got an old grey t-shirt on and Robert wrestles to get it up to his armpits, Aaron refusing to help him.

“You’re not fixing this with sex.” Aaron folds his arms and Robert lets the material go, and Aaron go.

“I could be fixing this with sex.” He says offhandedly, and Aaron raises his eyebrows. “I don’t know why you’re making a big deal out of one nightmare.”

“But it ain’t just a nightmare, is it? You were out of it, Robert, scared out of your mind.”

Robert wants to put up a front or a wall, but he knows that it isn’t going to work with Aaron, so he tries to downplay it, “I thought I lost you, so yeah, I was out of it.”

“And?”

“And nothing. I can’t make up something that isn’t there.”

Suddenly it feels very much like when Robert was shot but he wasn’t the only one who reacted badly. Aaron pushed. Pushed Robert further than he was willing to go. _Away_.

“Aaron, let’s not do this, okay,” He rubs Aaron’s biceps in what he hopes is a reassuring way and when Aaron doesn’t flinch or try to shake him off, he figures he’s done it, “Everything lately has been a lot, it must just be showing up in my subconscious. You did just get shot, so it’s not like this is out of nowhere.”

Aaron licks his lips and nods with a shrug of his shoulders.

Robert sighs, “Please. Please…”

He tucks his face into the join between Aaron’s neck and his shoulder. He feels so tired like he could sleep for days even though he’s just woken up.

There’s a tiny bit of give in Aaron’s body and Robert knows he’s won. For now, at least.

“I want tea,” Aaron tells him, pushing him away by his hips and going back to the settee.

“Tea it is, biscuit?”

Aaron hums, “Yeah, go on.”

Robert turns around and grabs the biscuit barrel and puts it on the coffee table in front of Aaron who opens it and pulls out a custard cream. Robert has never been keen on them and Aaron will eat anything that comes in one of those selection packs.

 _See, this is better. Just another Wednesday_.

Robert squeezes his eyes shut and tries to ignore the absence of Aaron’s body as him falling from his grasp as he took his last breath.

 _It’s just a dream. It’s not like you can see the future, you idiot_.

“Hey,” He says, Aaron looking up from the barrel, digestive in hand, “I love you.”

Aaron’s brows twitch like he almost wants to frown but doesn’t.

“Thank you for worrying about me.”

He’s still confused when he nods, and Robert goes back to making the tea.

 _Just another Wednesday_.


	6. Chapter 6

If there’s anything Aaron hates, it’s when Robert keeps things from him. It’s not even that he keeps things a secret, it’s that he blindly thinks that Aaron doesn’t notice or that he willingly gives up because Robert can hold out longer than he can. He can’t. Aaron just knows how to play the long game. Eventually, when Robert can’t take it, and by it, that’s Aaron’s constant glaring, he’ll come to him with his problem.

It’s not in Aaron’s nature to let things slide, not when they matter.

He drinks his tea and tries to pretend he doesn’t see the dark circles under Robert’s eyes and that he heard the pained moans as Robert wrestled with himself in sleep. It shunted Aaron back to a time he never wanted to go back to. The fights he and Robert had after he was shot were some of the worst in their fifteen years together. Robert would try to restrain Aaron any way he could; cut him off from the secondary bank account, misplace the car keys, invent situations he needed ‘help’ with, all the while playing dumb as a post, and in turn, Aaron would question him. What did he see, who did he see, when did he see them? He must know something about the shooter. They both clung so tightly to each other in the worst of ways and it almost broke them apart.

And Aaron swore, never again. He remembers with painful clarity Robert closing the door behind him because they both just couldn’t take it anymore.

 _I love you, but it’s killing me_.

He knows he’s walked a fine line today. They’re both a bit tender with it, he knows, but _he can’t_. More than he can’t have Robert lie to him or be the one that drags them back to that awful place, he can’t be the one who stands by and leaves Robert to his pain. To the nights where he woke up screaming because he thought he was still dying. The grief he felt when he found out his brother was the one responsible. Something changed in Robert that day. Even more than before, Aaron became his little family. The only one he would show loyalty to. Protect with his last dying breath.

 _Don’t_.

Aaron shuts the door on those memories before they surface. The constant push-pull of being okay and not being okay is wearing on him without them to drag him into _not okay_.

He needs something to do.

Robert is just going over paperwork, shuffling about from room to room. He’s mostly only around because Aaron is. He’ll head out soon to go to Drive, but until then he likes to keep himself available in case Aaron decides he wants to make plans with his free time.

“I’m gonna go see my mum,” He decides.

Robert comes out from the downstairs loo with a frown, “Alright.”

“I said I’d pop over next day off I had.”

It was probably true at some point.

“Don’t worry about food, I’ll get something at the pub.”

“I can meet you if you like.” There’s something in Robert’s voice, the quiet underpinning of hope that warms Aaron’s heart.

He smiles, “I’ll be home for tea.”

Robert accepts it with what looks like minimal upset as he comes over for a goodbye kiss even though Aaron still has to change and tugs a couple of times on Aaron’s necklace, jangling his ring at the bottom. For someone so mixed up in so much nefarious shit, Robert looks surprisingly innocent, almost boyish in his hesitation when he pulls back.

_We’ve lived too much for that, haven’t we, Rob?_

He pats Robert’s side and goes upstairs to put on a fresh t-shirt and hoodie.

 

 

 

To say Chas Dingle wasn’t Robert’s number one fan originally is an understatement. Aaron thinks her words were something to the effect of _anyone but him, Aaron_. But given that, at the time, they got on about as much as a cat likes taking a bath, he didn’t pay her any mind. Still, Robert put up with her constant jabbing at him, her underhanded comments, and her glaring from across the dinner table up until Aaron told her he was going to join the force. That Robert was facilitating him getting out of the business and starting over. That Robert had proposed after almost five years together. After that, he had her begrudged respect.

“Heya love, wanna give me a hand?”

Aaron opens the door to the Woolpack and his mum is moving cases of bottled beer from the back out front. They make small talk while Aaron heaves the boxes, which seem to get progressively heavier and Chas stops moving them herself altogether.

“Alright, so what’s he done this time?” Chas asks as she pulls out a glass bottle of orange juice and uncaps it. Whipping out a straw, she takes a sip and waits for Aaron to answer.

“Dunno what you’re talking about.”

Chas sighs exaggeratedly, “You’re here, on your day off I’m guessing, moving boxes for me instead of spending it with your husband like you always do. He’s done summat alright.”

Aaron pulls himself a pint and nicks a bag of crisps, “It’s nothing, Mum.”

 _I sound like Robert_.

That only makes him lean against the bar and push his pint to the side, “He says he’s alright, but he had a nightmare last night.”

“And you pushed.”

Aaron closes his eyes. He doesn’t want it to be true.

“Yeah, well, I knew he was lying to me.”

“It probably is nothing if it’s one night, Aaron.” Chas rubs his arm and taps his hand before opening his crisps and taking one.

Biting his lip, Aaron stands up. He takes back and eats some of the crisps before he says, “We were good, great, then one of the desk sergeants, Barton, kicks off and now…”

_Now I’m questioning my husband as if he’s a criminal. One I’d actually arrest._

Chas waits for him to finish and Aaron doesn’t know how to. No, he does, he just doesn’t want to.

“I don’t want to go back to that place with him.” Aaron chucks his packet on the bar and folds his arms back down again and leans on them. “It nearly did us in the last time. Better to cut it off now.”

He feels almost set in his decision when he looks at his mum and she’s making that face.

“You know that you can’t push Robert. He’s just as stubborn as you are.” She grabs his cheek with her thumb and forefinger and pinches. Aaron pulls out of her grasp and bats her hand away from him.

“If it’s a battle of wills he wants, I’ll wait him out.”

“Aaron—”

“Mum.” He sighs.

“Go home. Robert will probably be fretting by now.”

 

 

 

Robert is a fretter and a stress cleaner. The living room smells like Mr Muscle and the knobby coffee table books they have are piled up in a perfectly parallel line to the edge of the table. Robert should already be getting ready for work but from the sounds of it, he’s up to his elbows in something in the kitchen. He’s a study in bizarre opposites. On the one hand, Aaron has seen him verbally take someone’s head off for bringing him the wrong books, and on this hand, his husband is chopping vegetables very precisely before chucking them into a roasting tin with an uncooked chicken.

“Tea?”

He looks up and smiles when he sees Aaron, “Can’t live on takeaways, can we?”

“It’s not Sunday.” Aaron points out.

Robert huffs a laugh, “No, but I felt like doing it.”

Aaron considers his words but says them anyway, “Feeling better then?”

The metaphorical knife edge perilously tilts, but Robert leans them back, “Needed a day to just do nothing, I guess. Destress.”

He knows what his mum said, he knows what he thinks, and he knows Robert, and none of it stops him.

“I can’t let it go.”

“Aaron—”

“Maybe if you hadn’t lied to my face,” he comes over to where Robert is gripping his kitchen knife and leaning on the side.

“One nightmare, Aaron, it was one sodding nightmare, let it go.” He storms off, but Aaron goes after him.

“The truth, Robert, that’s all I’m asking.”

Robert whirls on him in the upstairs hallway, “I told you the truth, I had a nightmare.”

He puts his emphasis on the words, ‘I had a nightmare’ but Aaron still doesn’t buy it.

“And here I stand, not believing it.”

Robert puts his hands up, “Well if Aaron Dingle says it’s a lie it must be a lie, mustn’t it!”

“Because Robert Sugden is just a fountain of truth.” Aaron immediately wants to take the words back, but Robert already recoils like he’s been struck.

Aaron reaches out, but Robert shakes his head, “Don’t.”

“Robert—”

“You clearly don’t need me for whatever conversation or decisions you’ve made so I’m going to go shower, put on a clean suit and maybe when I’m done, you can tell me what you’ve decided.” Robert’s voice is cold. Not calculating, but the kind that shakes because he wants the words to come out before he knows he won’t be able to say them.

Aaron closes his eyes when Robert turns his back on him and shuts their bedroom door with him on the outside of it.

He goes down to the living room and waits. He started the day pushing and ended it with shoving Robert off a cliff so now he’s going to do what he should have done and backed the fuck off.

 

 

 

Robert looks amazing in his three-piece blue suit. It’s also the closest thing he has to armour, and it breaks Aaron’s heart to see it.

He sighs and stays sat where he is, “The problem with us is we know each other too well.”

Robert’s head bobs unconsciously like he agrees with what Aaron is saying.

“We got into a lot of shit not talking before, Rob, I won’t do it again.”

“And you think not listening to what I say is helping any?” Robert sits down in front of him on the coffee table, so close yet so far.

“You lie about a lot and that’s the truth. Sometimes it’s better that way, for both of us. But this,” Aaron curls his hand up into a fist and presses it into his belly, “I have to go with my gut.”

“Your gut is wrong, Aaron, I’m sorry.” Robert brushes his palm quickly over his cheek and leans over for a kiss, missing Aaron’s mouth and pressing against the corner of it. Aaron doesn’t move to correct him. “I really have to go, I’ll see you in bed.”

Aaron barely feels the kiss against his temple and how Robert cups his shoulder for a squeeze as he passes.

 _My gut is never wrong_.

 

 

 

Aaron finds himself on autopilot. He cooks the chicken to Robert’s instructions; it’s a recipe they’ve made a lot over their marriage and one of the few things Aaron himself can do well. He carves Robert up a plate with some veg in case he hasn’t eaten when he gets home and covers it with cling film and puts it in the fridge. For him, everything either tastes like nothing or ash. Still, he washes his plate and puts it on the draining board before taking out one of his cheap cans of beer and popping the ring.

His mind drifts back to when Robert put his ledgers on the bed. They’re not something he looks over because Robert has always been the more mathematically minded one, but he’s sure he can make heads or tails of them.

Aaron shakes his head.

_What am I sayin’?_

He takes his beer over to the settee, plonks himself down and puts the telly on. Like dinner, it’s static-y noise that doesn’t really penetrate his brain.

 _A book of numbers ain’t gonna tell me what’s up with him_.

Aaron digs out his phone, no new messages, and he leaves it on the cushion next to him. He changes his mind and picks it up again to send one of his own.

 **I love you, you know**.

It lands back on the cushion face down, drowning out the illuminating light as Aaron heads upstairs to the office. Barely a minute later, he gets one back.

 **I know. I love you so much. Let’s talk when I get home**.

He doesn’t see it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before anyone asks me, no, Robert did not cheat, that's not the issue here. 
> 
> I was asked in my side venture of stories in the same 'verse as to how long they've been together/how old Aaron and Robert are and the answer is that they met when they were 16 and 18, they were married at 21 and 23 and are 31 and 33, totaling 15 years together when this story begins. It will all come out eventually but if you're curious, that's that.


	7. Chapter 7

Robert doesn’t get the feeling that anything has been resolved between him and Aaron, but he does feel more hopeful when he gets a text halfway into his night that says **I love you, you know**. And he does. Aaron isn’t fighting some invisible enemy, he’s fighting what Robert is willing to share with him.

 _Maybe I should tell him_.

He knows that Aaron won’t put much stock in his dream anyway. Aaron believes in what he sees, he knows and can feel in his grasp. He’s always been that way. Sometimes it makes him hard headed, but in the same way that Robert tries and misses the mark with him, his heart is in the right place.

 **I know, I love you so much. Let’s talk when I get home**.

The prospect of it sets Robert buzzing. He sets up three more deals in insurance fraud, one smash and grab on the local electronics shop and two coke pick ups with his guys in London. It’s enough to keep him busy for the next couple of weeks, showing his face here, being about, but still having the time to work on things with Aaron.

Until Mikey busts through the back entrance of the club, painted in blood and looking particularly sorry for himself. One of the others shepherds him into the downstairs ‘lounge’ before anyone sees him, and Robert smiles and raises a few glasses with people so that no one thinks to check when he goes down to see what the fuss is about.

“Mikhail?” Robert asks as he arranges his shirt sleeves to their proper places.

“Boss.”

Mikhail Krotkiy is as his name would suggest, a barely twenty-year-old Russian runner who Robert took on to clear another debt. A flop of long black hair plastered to his forehead with sweat and some blood, Mikey keeps his eyes down. He looks shaken more than just being beat up, he’s shaken by Robert.

So, Robert uses it. He crouches down next to him and uses a calm and even voice, “What happened?”

He can almost see Mikey’s pulse increasing. He’s a strip of nothing, beyond thin, beyond desperate, far from home; Robert can see so many ins on him that it’s almost surprised him that Mikey has lasted this long.

“We, I, well.”

“Spit it out.”

“They took the drugs.” He eventually admits, hanging his head.

Robert licks his lips and sits down on the settee next to Mikey who flinches away from him despite Robert making no move to touch him.

“Now when you say they took the drugs—” Robert stays even, “do you mean…?”

Mikey doesn’t want to tell him so Robert angles himself towards him, and Mikey swallows hard and finally admits, “The overnight stash.”

The undistributed _complete_ stash worth about thirty-five grand.

Any other day, Robert would hit the roof. Part of him wants to. Part of him wants to rip into Mikey over this mysterious ‘they’, but he just stands up and straightens his jacket.

“Mr Sugden?” Mikey’s voice quivers and Robert nods to Gerry to get the stuff to clean him up.

“Today I’m feeling benevolent, Mikhail, do you understand?” Robert turns to Mikey, “You’re going to tell Harry everything you saw, and Gerry is going to sort you out, then you’re going to go home to bed and sleep. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good because if I don’t have something to work with by tomorrow I might not feel so benevolent, do you understand?” Robert digs his phone out of his pocket and shows it more interest than Mikey.

Mikey stands up fast and he must have some cracked ribs because he winces as if the wind is punched out of him, “I’ll fix it, I promise.”

Robert grabs Mikey’s face and he cowers almost immediately, Robert just holds him so that his focus doesn’t waver, as if it would, “Don’t make promises, Mikey. Don’t ever set yourself up for failure. Especially not with me.”

“Everyone.” Robert nods his head to the room and people start coming out of the wood work to do his bidding. More guys have come in beat up and none of them look him in the eye either. Mikey, for all he’s not, is someone who will stand up and say what needs to be said.

Robert catches Harry as he comes in to start asking questions. A large and imposing sort, Harry backs Robert up if his methods don’t work. Which is rarely. For every hard man who walks in here thinking he can fuck with Robert, he walks out begging for whatever Robert took from him.

“Harry,” They shake hands as they always do.

“Robert.”

“Find whoever ran this and fix it. Put Mikey on the up.”

“Any preference?” _For fixing_.

“They lost me a stash to whoever the fuck knows and got a kid beat up, surprise me.”

“Say hi to the ball and chain, yeah?”

Harry has known about Aaron the longest because he’s been with Robert the longest. That and he’s ex-police. Unfairly fucked over, Aaron suggested to Robert that Harry might find new employment with him. If a trust could be established. Luckily, it was. Harry brought his wife, Kimberly, over for drinks and she had taken an instant shine to him, but mostly to Aaron, and her seal of approval meant that Robert was worthy in Harry’s eyes. That and the lengths he goes to to protect Aaron from all of this. And frankly, Robert thinks he likes to mix up his increasingly bizarre gender-neutral terms for martial spouse. In poll position is a literary turn of ‘ghost in the attic’, which makes no sense because Robert is no Mr Rochester.

“You know how it is.” Robert smiles.

Harry gets a dopey look on his face despite being married nearly as long as Robert, “Yeah, I do.”

“Later, mate.”

They shake hands again and Robert finally makes his way home.

 

 

 

 

The house is quiet, so Robert heads up to their room and Aaron is in bed but reading a magazine when Robert opens the door.

“Hiya,” Aaron says as he puts the magazine down.

Robert kicks off one shoe and the other as he heads over to lean down and kiss his husband hello. Aaron holds him with a hand on the back of his head like he always does and Robert feels like he could fly. He’s dropped unceremoniously to Earth when he pulls away and sees his ledgers on the bed next to Aaron.

Aaron looks at him and Robert waits for some sort of explanation. He says nothing. Robert stands up and folds his arms, words choked in his throat because he doesn’t know what he feels.

“I didn’t open them, but I wanted you to know I wanted to. I didn’t want to lie.”

_You texted me you loved me, was it before or after you betrayed me?_

Robert turns around and leaves the room, Aaron calling his name and the shuffling of their quilt as he gets himself out of it.

“If you had asked, I would have given them to you, you know that. You. Know. That.” Robert starts, then he heads down the stairs. He needs a drink. Aaron follows him with that same level of calm that Robert showed Mikey and he hates it. He fucking hates it.

“Well?” He prods Aaron as he walks over to the drinks caddy.

“What do you want me to say?” Aaron handles him with kid gloves, leaving his question open like he’s prostrating himself, like he’s a martyr.

“I want you to tell me why!”

Robert takes the decanter and pours himself a glass but doesn’t for Aaron. He wouldn’t take it anyway. Not when they’re fighting.

“You know why.”

“Back to this again?”

 _It’s Robert’s fault, again_.

“Yeah, Robert, _again_.” It’s the first spark of anger in Aaron but it doesn’t get him off the arm of the settee where he’s perched.

“Fuck you.” It just rips out of him. He isn’t expecting it, Aaron clearly isn’t expecting it, but it feels true. It’s like it uncorks something inside of him so he says it again, “fuck you.” Only it’s weak now, it takes him down and he slumps onto the floor like someone took away his spine.

Aaron immediately comes over and grabs his shoulders to stop him from completely collapsing and that’s when Robert realises he’s crying. Not sobbing, just wet, shuddery shakes and tears slipping on his cheeks that he can’t stop. Aaron wraps his arms around his shoulders and Robert just lets go, sobs into Aaron’s chest all the grief he’s felt tied up inside him, all the pain and fear.

It lasts for what feels like an age but it’s probably barely longer than a minute.

Surprisingly, his drink is still in his glass and he downs it to Aaron calling him. He pulls away from Aaron’s embrace because this isn’t finished. He can see the stains where he’s soaked Aaron’s shirt, so he stands up to get away from them.

“So, come on then, why?”

Aaron looks at him like he’s mad.

“Why, Aaron?”

He shakes his head and Robert turns away from him.

“I killed you. I shot you in cold blood and I have no idea why. I held your body in my arms like it was real and then I let you drop, like you were nothing. I let you die like you were nothing.”

Robert puts the glass down and turns back to Aaron still sitting on the floor.

“I woke up and for a moment it was true. The worst moment of my life. I thought I had betrayed you.”

“But it wasn’t real. This, this is.”

He doesn’t wait for, or want, an answer. He fishes his keys out of the bowl, grabs a random pair of shoes from next to the door and takes himself away. Far, far away.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was a consensus to post the slightly smaller chapter I have now even though it does kind of have a cliffhanger-y aspect. Also that it metaphorically dick punches you, but I didn't mention that. Sorry. 
> 
> Kroktiy (кроткий) is Russian for meek, mild, soft, basically. 
> 
> The book Harry is referencing with the 'ghost in the attic' thing is _Wide Sargasso Sea_ by Jean Rhys rather than _Jane Eyre_. Excellent novel, by the way.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Parte deux of their fight. 
> 
> Warnings for drug abuse (minor character).

_I definitely read that fucking wrong_. Aaron stares after where Robert walked away from him, his shoes completely mismatched from his suit before he heads back upstairs to grab his phone.

 **Text me you’re safe**.

He doesn’t know if Robert has had more than the drink he downed and he has no idea where Robert’s going so it’s not like he can follow either.

 **Robert, please**.

He sends the second just to make sure that Robert’s anger and upset doesn’t blind him. After that, Aaron takes stock of his own feelings. He knows he had every intention of reading Robert’s ledgers, of trying to fix whatever was wrong with _them_ , only when he had the books in his hands, it betrayed every feeling he has ever felt for the man he loves. To see that look of anguish that dawned on Robert’s face, his plaintive cry of ‘I would have given them to you’ because he would have. Aaron thought he was doing the right thing by admitting that but all he’s done is smash further into an ever-widening crack between them.

 _I killed you_.

The words crawled on Aaron’s skin to hear them, not because he died in Robert’s dream, but because of how Robert said them. Cold, dispassionate, and _void_. It’s the side of Robert that Aaron doesn’t like to think about. He knows it exists and it has done terrible things, things he should never have been able to stomach but he has. _What else am I supposed to do? I love him_.

He knows what he sounds like and he loathes himself and Robert for turning him into that. _He didn’t lure me into anything with sly promises. I walked when I couldn’t handle it_.

And that’s what turns his stomach the most. Robert doesn’t leave. Robert is in it until there’s nothing left but bone dust. Aaron was the one who forced their break up when it happened. With a heavy heart, he had handed back his ring and prayed that it would solve the agony inside his chest. It didn’t. What did was Robert. The same, but new, welcoming him back into his heart with a shyness Aaron had never seen.

 _If I have to bleed the truth, I will_.

Aaron didn’t want blood. He just wanted honesty, and for eight years, Robert never hid anything from him. Nothing that mattered, But with one whiff of a lie, the very prospect of it, had sent Aaron reeling back to that place where all he could do was push and shove and bully Robert into telling him the truth. They were their worst selves, their insecurities running amok and Aaron can’t even blame Robert for going. _It’s my fault_.

There’s nothing on his phone, so Aaron picks the most obvious choice and heads to Drive.

 

 

 

The club is open at the manager’s entrance, so he knows Robert is in. Harry is standing just inside the door and he looks at Aaron with a worried glance and cocks his head towards the stairs up to Robert’s office.

It’s like a mini club, people packed in, clearly carrying on the night, and Robert behind his desk looking completely shitfaced. Aaron catches a glimpse of powder on his desk and he shoves three people out of his way to get to it.

“If you’ve shoved anything up your nose, Robert Sugden, I will punch it,” Aaron tells him with a cold sort of fury that comes over him. Rationally, he knows Robert has never been into drugs but he is into spite.

Robert waves his hand, “It’s a party, Aaron. For my friends, for people who trust me. You trust me, don’t you?”

A guy in his early twenties smiles and nods but he has partaken in the drugs, so he never really focuses on Aaron and that’s good. Because he’s about to kick off.

“POLICE! EVERYONE, OUT, UNLESS YOU WANT TO GET ARRESTED!” Aaron bellows and watches the rats scramble back into the dark.

“You had no right—” Robert gets up and sways on his feet.

“Fuck off,” Aaron spits back at him like he did to Aaron earlier, “you’re lucky I don’t nick ya for the fucking coke on the desk, you arsehole.”

Everyone gets seen out by Harry because he comes in and gives Aaron a silent nod when it’s done as Robert burns holes into the back of his head. Once Harry leaves, Aaron turns back around.

“Ya done with your little performance?”

Robert hasn’t calmed down one bit, “Bit rich coming from you _mate_.”

Normally, Aaron finds it endearing when Robert’s common side comes out. He worked so hard to be taken seriously as a businessman and a lot of it meant eradicating who he was. Now, it just pisses him off.

“Unbunch your knickers, we’re married, and married people fight. I thought if I was honest with you, you’d be honest with me, what a fucking melon I was.”

That takes a bit of wind out of Robert’s sails, but he still roughs up for a second round.

“Being honest about how you broke into my safe and took every piece of incriminating evidence against me is a bit more than a fight, Aaron.”

“You lying to me is a bit more than ‘everything is fine, Aaron’,” Aaron mockingly mimics Robert for the last part. It’s childish, but it’s where they’ve gotten to. “You don’t fucking lie to me, Robert. It’s what you said, it’s what you promised.”

He can feel the tears stinging the back of his eyes, a mix of upset and tension but he puts his hands on his hips and tilts his head up in the hopes they don’t fall. Robert comes out from behind his desk and reaches for him, only to fall short. Unsure if his touch is wanted.

“You think that there’s anything that you can say that will make me stop loving you?” Aaron’s voice cracks on the last you, “Too late, Robert. There isn’t. So just stop. _Stop_.”

Robert wraps Aaron up in his arms and Aaron turns his face into Robert’s neck so that he can’t smell the cheap fags and shitty booze clinging to Robert, instead, he can smell the clean scent of aftershave, the one Robert wore on their wedding day no less. That’s the Robert he wants. The one he misses.

It’s chasing that idea that Aaron unbuttons the bottom of Robert’s shirt, Robert’s hands covering his with hesitation. Aaron ignores him. Eventually, he reaches the top and pushes it off Robert’s shoulders. He rubs Robert’s scar under his thumb as his hand rests on his chest, the two of them finally coming together in a searching kiss. Aaron finally allows himself to tremble, to pour out his fear and let Robert swallow it down and make him feel safe again.

They trip and fall on Robert’s sofa which has a plastic cup wedged in the crease and Aaron throws it off before Robert lays down on him, pushing his thighs open so that there’s space for him there. As if there wouldn’t be. Aaron just keeps his focus on Robert; his face, his eyes, the swell of his bottom lip, they become all he thinks about as Robert plays him like a well-loved instrument. The only time he is denied that is when Robert leans down to bite his Adam’s apple, encouraging him to be louder, to give him more. _There isn’t more, you’ve taken all of it_.

Aaron screws his eyes shut and sees stars. He opens them and there are no stars. Just a feeling that they’re moving to a better place that Aaron clings desperately to. Robert rolls him onto his side and slots in behind him, leg slung over Aaron’s thigh, hand trapping his belly and Aaron tries to find deeper solace in sleep. It doesn’t come, but sleep does, so Aaron takes it.

 

 

 

Harry raps on the door at an ungodly hour, “Aaron, you need to go, people are starting to come in.”

Aaron unsticks his tongue from the roof of his mouth and rubs at his bleary eyes. He fumbles about pulling up his joggers without disturbing Robert, grabbing his shirt off the floor and chucking it over him.

He leaves Robert a note: _come home, x_ before he runs a hand through his hair and comes out of Robert’s office.

Harry offers him a cup of tea in a to-go cup, just the way Aaron likes it, “Thanks, Harry.”

“You two alright now?”

Aaron doesn’t know how to answer that, so he just goes with, “Better.”

“Good, when he came in with a face like thunder after going home all happy like…” Harry trails off when he sees Aaron’s face, “I worry about him.”

“I know you do,” Aaron does frown before he asks, “The coke was a bit much though.”

“However upset he is, Robert would never touch it.”

Aaron shrugs, Robert went through a phase of ‘try anything once’ when they were younger and so Aaron never rules anything completely out.

Blowing on his tea, the first sip is like nectar, “I gotta go, Harry, send him home in a bit alright. Just knock like you did before. Loudly.”

“How loudly?” Harry asks, sceptically.

“Like a bulldozer.”

Harry wags his finger, “If I see his balls or arse I want hazard pay.”

Aaron shrugs larger this time, unable to conceal a grin either, “Too bad you don’t work me then ain’t it?”

“Sod off, Aaron.” Harry waves him off and Aaron heads back to his car to go and get sorted for work.

He gets a text as he’s strapping himself in from his boss.

 **Body dump. Go**.

The address follows, and Aaron almost goes there until he realises he’s still in his pyjamas. _Idiot_.

 

 

 

A shower and a trim of his beard later, Aaron puts it into his satnav and he realises why he almost went there without changing. It’s basically on top of Drive.

Finn is already there talking to plainclothes officers when Aaron holds his tie and is guided under the tape.

“DI Dingle, we got a name?”

“Matthew Leone, time of death, approximately 3-6am, not confirmed, no evidence of a robbery because he’s got all of his stuff still apart from his phone.” One of the plainclothes is a woman. Alicia?

The body bag is unzipped and Aaron schools his face immediately. His face, soft and slack in death, is coke boy's.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lunch break.
> 
> Warnings: Language. Mentions of drug use.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am trying and failing hard at the 7 Days of Robron so this is to make me feel less like I suck. So don't get too comfy. ;)

Feeling like a dirty stop out, Robert holds his shirt away from his body as the smell of it wafts up his nose and turns him completely off any thoughts of breakfast, at least until he’s showered. The steam and hot water are gorgeous, and Robert spends a good five minutes just letting it beat down on his back to work out the kinks from sleeping awkwardly on his office settee with Aaron.

He thinks about what Aaron said in his office and he realises how much he had been hurting his husband. It wasn’t about the lie itself, but that Robert was choosing to be dishonest with the one person who wants to support him. Who deserves better than half-truths and ‘protecting’. In the same way that Aaron reacts to being shut out, Robert reacts when he’s being dragged.

And he knows that his actions were about more than a dream. The emotionless void that he felt was what he saw in the shadows that shot him. His shooter didn’t care about him. Didn’t care that he had someone waiting for him at home. Didn’t care that Aaron would be the one to find him, bleeding and choking on his own blood as his hands shook, trying to hold the blood inside to no avail. That Robert only felt like he might live when Aaron folded his hands over his wound and pressed down so hard that he thought his ribs were going to collapse. He wasn’t able to form words, so he mouthed the only one he could: _Aaron_ , and he hoped that he would know that if Robert didn’t make it how much he loved him. That it wasn’t his fault. The last thing he remembers is Aaron’s tears dripping on his cheek before Aaron pressed theirs together, _I know, Robert, I know_.

Robert gets himself out of the shower, wrapping a towel around his waist, trying to clear his thoughts from that awful night. It was just the start of so much worse. The real damage the bullet did had nothing to do with his body. It cauterised open edges and left a wound in his mind, one that would take his actual heart from him. Looking down at his hand, he twirls his wedding ring on his finger. There was so much Aaron didn’t understand, couldn’t, and Robert didn’t have the words to tell him. He didn’t want to. He selfishly wanted to hide his pain and live in it because of the fear it had brought him. How it consumed him like a cancer, the not knowing why and if another day of reckoning would come. He never moved on from it. He let it bleed like invisible blood that covered everything; him, Aaron, their life. Nothing penetrated his thick fog, not until Aaron packed a bag and gave him his ring.

The silence of Aaron being gone was a hundred times worse than the silence after the bullet rang out.

He had begged, borrowed and stolen to try and get Aaron back, but he just looked at Robert with sad eyes. _But you ain’t changed though, have you?_

It was only once Robert stopped chasing Aaron that he realised he was right. There was nothing he could offer Aaron, not the way he was. He found out the truth by complete accident and it was the final rip in the rancid tissue that had rotted everything in his life. Rather than covering it up and letting it fester again, he took his truth and brought it to Aaron _. If I have to bleed the truth, I will_. So, he laid it at Aaron’s feet in the hopes that he would know what to do with it. Side by side, in love but not lovers, Aaron got him justice. A justice he knew he never really deserved but cried with relief when it came. And in the shining gold of that victory, Aaron opened back up the door to them being together.

 _Aaron felt like we were back there_ , Robert acknowledges as he looks at his scar in the mirror. _Him once again on the outside and me willingly shutting him out_.

It suddenly means a whole world more than Aaron stayed, had come to Drive to find him. Robert tries not to think that because Aaron left once, he will leave again, but it lives in the back of his mind like a cautionary tale. He isn’t living on borrowed time but there is a precipice that he can fall over if he’s not careful. It’s of his own making so he knows he only has himself to blame.

Walking back through to their bedroom, Robert checks his phone and he’s got a text from Aaron: **lunch later. important. x**

He frowns. Robert knows they probably have a lot to talk about, but he wonders what the rush is.

 **U ok?** He texts back before dropping his phone down and getting dressed. He doesn’t feel like going to the club tonight, so he just grabs a pair of his favourite jeans and a nice shirt and chucks them on.

His phone dings again: **work stuff. v. important**.

 _Police stuff?_ Robert heads down to make himself some eggs and contemplate why Aaron would need to talk to him about work stuff. Beyond the usual ‘hi, honey, how was your day?’ Robert also decides he wants to be super fancy and use the new poaching cups that he bought the other week and oils them up before he gets another text.

 **It’s about last night**.

That does get his attention. Last night, his party last night, or last night when he had Aaron on his settee, last night? **Text me the place. No bread. Bored of it**.

 **K**.

Robert tucks his phone away and gets an avocado out for mashing. A bit of paprika, a squidge of lemon and a pinch of salt and he’s happy with it. He does make toast despite saying he’s sick of bread but what he can he say. He likes a good Instagram of the ol’ egg and avo on toast. He sits at the table and enjoys the peace and quiet, feeling content for the first time in ages.

 

 

 

 

Aaron texts him an address just after one for a two o’clock lunch, so Robert grabs his keys and heads out. He’s pretty sure this is an all-day breakfast place and he wonders if Aaron actually got to eat this morning before he went to work. He’s terrible for not and then grabbing something from the canteen later that doesn’t bear thinking about. Robert grabs them a table at the back because Aaron might say two o’clock but not show up for another twenty-five minutes after that. He orders a coffee that he can practically chew and looks at the menu.

When he looks up from it, Aaron is winding his way through the tables to him before he parks himself opposite Robert.

“Heya,” Aaron looks tense and he takes a gulp of Robert’s coffee before he makes a disgusted face, “Urgh, what is that?”

“Motor oil. What’s wrong?” Robert ignores the cup and Aaron tries to catch the eye of a waitress.

“Food, I’m starving.” Aaron leans forward and under the table his hand cups Robert’s knee with a squeeze. He straightens up when the waitress comes over with her notepad, “Hi, can I get a full English? Flat white, as well.”

Robert drops his menu, “Lasagne, extra salad, thanks.”

“Watching your weight?” Aaron pokes and Robert rolls his eyes.

“As if I could with you, you eat like a child.” Robert sniffs with a small upturn of his nose.

Aaron doesn’t look fazed, “Pizza’s good, I ain’t gonna say otherwise.”

“Yeah, and the rest,” Robert smiles and Aaron gives him a cheeky closed mouth smile as he tilts his head. “So, what’s the big emergency.”

Aaron’s face turns sombre immediately, “Matthew Leone, 24, died last night.”

Robert shrugs, “And?”

“You might not recognise him in the light of day, but he was the kid doing drugs off your table last night,” Aaron sighs and Robert stops dead.

“What?”

“Yeah, his body was found a few streets over. No current cause of death, but the post-mortem is being done soon and they’ll find the coke in his system.” Aaron looks frustrated and Robert tries to take it all in. “Finn was already there when I turned up.”

Robert frowns, “Why is that problem?”

Aaron shakes his head, “Started going around doing my job and they already put the body in the bag by the time I got there.”

“Can they even do that?”

Robert watches the minute flickers on his husband’s face and he thinks that something has gone amiss. That Barton has overstepped the mark somewhere and it’s set Aaron on the back foot.

“Aaron.”

Nothing.

“ _Aaron_.”

“Well, he’s gunning for ya, ain’t he?” Aaron sighs, “It being so close to the club, he’s put it all together as a set piece.”

“Makes sense,” Robert can’t deny it, “But I didn’t do it.”

 _Oh_. The reason they know he didn’t was because he was on top of Aaron.

“The moment you mention a spouse, Barton is going to be on that like a rash.”

Robert thinks for a moment, “So we don’t say spouse.”

The waitress brings the tray with their food on and they thank her before picking up their cutlery to tuck in.

“Pretty hard to say anything else as you were shagging your husband,” Aaron spears a cherry tomato and pops it into his mouth.

Robert gives Aaron a look, “I can tell the truth if you want me to. Out us. Or I can…bend it.”

Aaron drops his fork, “What?”

“You think I don’t have ways of covering my back? Aaron, I can give you a line up of people I can have conveniently slept with.” Robert takes his husband’s look in and he puts his knife down to put his hand over Aaron’s, “I haven’t. They’ll just say I did.”

“You mean, lie to the police.”

Robert traps a bit of cucumber and pops it into his mouth, “Lie, cover up, perpetrate deceit, yeah.”

Aaron still hasn’t gone back to his food, “It’s perverting the course of justice, Robert.”

“It’s keeping my husband safe,” Robert wills Aaron to see it that way and part of what makes him who he is is that he will and he won’t. His loyalty to the truth is what makes him an excellent police officer. “Eat your lunch before it goes cold, yeah.”

Aaron looks down at his sausages like he has never been less hungry in his life, “I’ll think about it.”

Robert hates himself a little bit that those words make him happier than anything else.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aaron visits Matthew's parents to try and find out more information.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note I've upped the warning to mature because there is mention/discussion of rape towards a secondary character as well as the implication of Aaron's own child abuse. None of it is gratuitous, I can assure you, it's specifically for the case side of this fic, but if that upsets you, please consider your health before reading this story.

Robert’s offer sits on Aaron like a lead weight on his chest. It goes against everything he believes in, right and wrong, the justice system that has crucified the innocent just as much as the guilty for a lot less than what he’s suggesting. Maybe it’s because he knows that is why he’s even considering it. Just because Robert says he didn’t do it, doesn’t mean they, Finn, will believe him. Finn will drag Robert through the mud and the filth because he believes Robert is guilty. And he is, but not of this. It says nothing of what will happen to Aaron if it comes out. His sexuality isn’t a secret but those who know don’t spread it around, and they definitely don’t know he’s married.

It’s a dilemma that’s for sure.

 

 

 

He puts it on the back burner while he interviews Matthew’s parents with some basic establishing questions about his day to day habits and tries his hardest to be gentle in breaking the news about his drug use. They don’t seem surprised, more resigned and their grief is muted by that fact. He notes down that Matthew liked to be called Theo for when questioning possible fellow users.

Matthew’s dad, Nigel, reminds him of a librarian, but he actually works as a bus driver, his mum, Sally, a homemaker but she stacks shelves in Tesco. She had to put her own failing health aside after Matthew stole their money pot a few months back for a week’s stash and a few nights in the hospital.

“So, you’d say he was a habitual user?” Aaron scribbles it down on his notepad.

Nigel scoffs but then stops as if he remembers that his son is dead and that to do so would disrespect him.

He wipes his hand over his moustache and sighs, “Theo found it hard to cope with life so he would make it go away with drugs and then drugs became his life.”

Aaron perks up on that, “What did Theo find hard?”

Sally lets go of her knees and holds her elbows instead, “He was gay, but he wasn’t the sort who could hide it, so kids bullied him. Word got around—”

Aaron licks his lips and writes it down too, “And it carried on past his school years?”

She nods, “A bit. He fell in with a bad crowd, first boyfriend was a user and he just made it worse for our Theo. We tried to give him space to come home, we tried dragging him back, but nothing helped. We couldn’t help him.”

Sally lets out a sob and Nigel moves to comfort her, and Aaron starts to close his notepad, but Nigel holds his hand out, “Please stay, we—we want you to find out what happened to our son.”

So he does, he doesn’t get his notepad back out though, he just asks, “Tell me about Theo.”

 

 

 

 

In a lot of ways, Aaron could have been Theo if he didn’t have his family or Robert. His own coming out was rough as he wanted more than anything not to be gay, to not be what he thought was a freakshow. Caught up in drugs, he wondered if it would get him in trouble, put lower in the pecking order, forever destined to be someone else’s little bitch. But it never happened. Either no one knew or they didn’t care.

And for as much as he hid it, he couldn’t around Robert. He was the first person who caught Aaron with a dirty magazine and as he tried to stuff it under his bum, Robert sat next to him, “You like blokes, huh?”

It was so matter of fact. Aaron didn’t know what to do with it. Sixteen and terrified, he opened his mouth to deny it, Robert’s two years on him seemed like a decade of experience and made him seem much larger in life than he was. Only, Robert tilted his head to one side and gently guided their mouths together, stealing Aaron’s first kiss with someone of the same sex. Aaron fumbled at first, unsure, and Robert had laughed into his mouth and let him get his bearings before he tried again. Better prepared, Aaron pulled at Robert’s arms and let himself go over Robert’s body when he pulled at Aaron to get closer to him, let him deepen the kiss and take it for all it was. He was left shaking, lips slick and body thrumming with potential.

Robert kissed the tip of his nose and Aaron stared at him before he shoved him off the settee with an exaggerated, “ _Ya knob_.”

It happened, and they never talked about it again, so Aaron hadn’t actually known where he stood with Robert. Was it a friendly ‘it’s okay to be gay’ kiss? Or ‘I fancy you let’s shag’ kiss? What?

It all came to a head when Aaron was staying over at Robert’s, a tiny cramped, barely fitting his bed in it hellhole, but it was his and he paid for it.

“Ain’t bad this, is it?” Aaron said as he looked around. The ceilings were high, the windows old wood but letting in tons of light. It had _potential_ , and that seemed to be what Robert was best at, looking at things and seeing _what they could be_ rather than what they were.

His bed was pretty much his only sitting area as well, a lumpy futon that Aaron was sure was gouging his spine when he laid on it.

Robert kneeled down next to him offering him a cheap beer only cold because it’s the only thing in his shoddy fridge.

“It’ll do for now,” Robert grinned. Always on the make, was Robert.

Aaron stared at him with his soft floppy hair, thankfully grown out from that spiky shit that Aaron hated on him. He put his beer down by his feet and took Robert’s to put beside it.

If Robert didn’t have a clue, he was good at hiding it. He waited patiently as Aaron got up on his knees too and gently put his face in close next to his, almost kissing him, but not quite. He never came forward, never took the choice from Aaron. If he wanted this, to kiss Robert, he had to do it for himself. Aaron looked down at Robert’s soft grey t-shirt and smoothed his hands over Robert’s sides and left them hanging on his hips.

Aaron took the plunge and pressed his lips against Robert’s, only his mouth was half on Robert’s mouth and half on his chin. They reoriented, and Aaron felt confident enough to push for more, to get Robert to open up and go a step further than their first kiss.

Robert’s hands came up to his shoulders and they kept him at a distance and Aaron pulled away, “D’ya not—?”

Robert sighed and Aaron felt his stomach drop.

“Yeah, but do you?”

Aaron stared because he didn’t quite understand it.

“I don’t want a few kisses here ‘n there with ya, Aaron. I want ya,” Robert’s face fell, his normal charming self tabled, and all of his vulnerabilities were exposed.

He hadn’t ever really thought about what that would mean. Actually being with a bloke, because he knew that the thought of it turned his stomach. Not the thought of touching Robert or being with him, but what people would say. The filth they’d shout.

“See,” Robert smiled sadly, “It’s alright.”

Aaron swallowed, “It ain’t you.” He needed Robert to know that.

“I know,” Robert caught his fingers with his hand and Aaron watched as they both moved their hands to lace together. “I can wait.”

 

 

 

 

 

Aaron shakes himself out of his reverie. It’s been a long time since he was a confused, pained sixteen-year-old. Rather than going back to the station, he heads home for a chance at spending ten minutes with Robert.

Robert is singing to himself in the kitchen as he tidies up, oven on, he stops when Aaron hugs himself to Robert’s back, rubbing Aaron’s arms where they lock on his waist.

“Y’alright?” He asks as Aaron squishes them even more tightly together, he can feel his ring digging into his chest and he wants to feel it more. To scoop up what it feels like being with Robert and take it around with him every day.

“Work stuff,” Aaron mumbles and Robert forces him to let go enough so that he can turn around and Aaron is tucked up under his chin.

“That case?” Robert asks, and he nods.

“Matthew, Theo, was gay. He struggled with it.”

Robert lets out a soft ‘oh’, and he rubs Aaron’s back in soothing lines.

He starts to pull away, “I can’t stop—”

Robert just drags him back into the circle of his arms, “You need this.”

He does. He has loved Robert for so long and it’s been hard and difficult, but it changed him, opened him up to a whole world beyond himself and what it means to love another. Theo never got that. He was so alone and in so much pain and then he died.

Aaron’s phone vibrates in his pocket and he stays where he is, cuddled up on Robert as he answers it, “Hello, DI Dingle.”

It’s the forensic department, they’ve done more sample collections and they’re in the process of doing the post-mortem. It’s being opened as an official murder inquiry.

He stands up, Robert still holding his waist with a gentle squeeze, “How come?”

The voice is tinny, but the words are clear, “He was sexually assaulted. We found significant tearing to the anal passage as well as trace amounts of latex and lubricant. There were particulates under his fingernails so we’re hoping to find some DNA there.”

Aaron hears the words, he knows what they mean in isolation but they all seem to jumble in his mind, “He fought?”

There’s a moment of silence, and Aaron respects it, “Yes, I would say he did.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome Detective Inspector.”

Robert waits for Aaron to say something, but he just goes and sits on their settee, Robert hovering and eventually sitting next to him.

Aaron feels like he’s having an out of body experience, “It’s being opened up as a murder inquiry because they found evidence that someone, he’d been—”

He can’t say it, and Robert touches his knee because he knows why Aaron can’t.

“You’ll find them,” Robert assures him.

“He didn’t deserve this,” Aaron stands up, “That kid didn’t deserve this. Walking home from a club in the middle of the week.”

Robert gets up with him and he tries to calm him, but Aaron just throws him off, “Don’t. Don’t try to make me feel better about this.”

Aaron watches as it dawns on Robert, “Aaron, you didn’t have anything to do with this.”

“But if we hadn’t of had that fight, you’d have still been at home.”

“So it’s my fault for opening the club.”

“No.”

“You can’t have it both ways, Aaron, it’s either both our faults or it’s neither.”

“I need a drink,” Aaron tries to push past Robert, but he won’t let go of him. Like before, he forces Aaron to take his arms around him and to let go of what he needs to. Aaron cries for Theo, for his pain, and then he cries for his own.

Robert shushes him and brushes his hair back, pressing kisses to his forehead and Aaron finally dries out and wipes his snotty nose on his sleeve.

“Have your tea then go back to work,” Robert tells him as he gets Aaron to sit at the table.

Aaron eats what Robert puts in front of him, barely tasting any of it as Robert throws him concerned glances.

He’s fine now, really, and he says as much, “I’m okay, Rob.”

Robert swallows his mouthful, “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, it’s a shitty situation made ten times worse. Just means I have to work harder to catch this fucker, for Theo.”

Because the truth is, a sexual motivation changes things a lot. He has to break the news to Nigel and Sally, but he can also tell them that this wasn’t their son’s fault. He fought, however minutely, and he wanted to live. He didn’t leave them because he wanted to, he was taken. He checks the time, he thinks he could probably make a house call now if he gets going quickly.

“I’m gonna go and tell his parents,” Aaron says to Robert as he’s already formulating in his head what he’s going to say, getting up from the table and heading to get his jacket.

Robert doesn’t look happy, but he doesn’t stop Aaron either.

“Robert.”

He nods, “I know.”

“They deserve to know their son didn’t accidentally kill himself.”

“Just when you’re doing all that, remember to take care of my husband,” Robert gets up and he brushes imaginary lint off of Aaron’s shirt. “Love you.”

Aaron affords him a small smile and a kiss before he goes. He looks at Robert; his worried eyes, how lines have appeared on his face with age, like seeing Aaron in pain hollows him out and he can see it on Robert’s face. And he draws strength from it, him, like he always has. Aaron gives Robert a half hug and sees himself out, the warmth of Robert staying with him long after he’s gotten into the car and headed over to the Leone’s.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robert tries to find ways to support Aaron after the latest revelations.

If Aaron could change his name to Atlas and carry the weight of the world he would, so it’s Robert’s job to support him and to make sure he doesn’t take on too much because even the god who held up the sky got tired of it.

He grabs his phone and heads into the office to call Harry but gets Gerry.

“Get him to call me,” Robert says shortly as he opens his laptop.

“Yes, sir, Robert, sir.”

There’s something in Gerry’s voice, a willingness that Robert can latch onto, “Gerry, would you do me a favour?”

It’s not a favour and Gerry knows it.

“Of course, sir.”

“Find me who dealt drugs to Matthew Leone, went by Theo, and don’t tell me you can’t find them. We’ve got sod all time before this guy goes to ground.” Robert starts logging into his computer and Gerry agrees and assures Robert he’s right on it.

Robert wanted it to be Harry. Harry, he trusts; Harry, _Aaron_ trusts, but he knows he’s right. Word will spread that Matthew is dead and they’ll have no chance of finding his dealer or at least getting Aaron a name.

He flicks open his email address, his unofficial, off-books address, and he sends out word that he’s looking into suppliers, higher-ups who might know more than even Matthew’s dealer. They want the stuff to sell, they’ll get back to him.

 

 

 

 

Robert checks his phone again, nothing from Aaron, and it’s getting later and later. He wonders if he’s still with the Leones or if he went to the station. He sends a text: **tell me where you are**.

He doesn’t need to know Aaron’s okay, he knows he’s not, but Robert needs to know where to go to find him.

 **Bar**.

Robert suspected as much, if not the pub at least. He picks up his keys and his coat and he gets into his Porsche. Things are in full swing downstairs when he gets there despite it being a weeknight, but Robert is deaf to it all. He nods to Paul behind the bar who nods back to him to tell him there is someone in his office.

Aaron looks wrecked on the sofa. Not in that he’s off his head with a glass in his hand but that his eyes are red from tiredness and fatigue and sleep won’t come. Robert sits next to him and pulls him into his body. Aaron goes because Robert pulls, not because he has any awareness of himself to go.

“It reminded me of Mum, telling them, except Theo’s mum didn’t have a son to hug and tell it was gonna be okay.”

“Aaron—”

“I know you’re probably gonna tell me to leave this case, and you’re right, I probably should, but things got complicated.”

Robert perks up at that, “Complicated how?”

“Do you see Harry?”

Robert was confused to not see Harry about downstairs, but it isn’t unusual.

Aaron turns into him, “Barton went after ‘im, dragged him in because he was the last one to see Theo.”

“What?” Robert says it more out of shock than anything else, shifting out from under Aaron so that they’re facing each other. “Harry didn’t touch him.”

“We know that, but the more Harry closes down in his interview, the harder Barton is biting.”

He can’t take this, “He’s a security guard, of course he’s going to be the last one to see anyone leaving here, this is nonsense.”

Aaron looks down, “It’s a door to you.”

“I didn’t touch that kid.”

“I know.”

“He doesn’t even know I’m—” Robert’s brain lights up as he puts two and two together, “He won’t tell me that Matthew was assaulted. Wants to see what lies he can trap me in.”

“Robert—” Aaron’s voice is soft, and Robert looks at his husband, so very weary and tired.

He settles down, “Has anyone called Kim?”

Aaron nods, “Soon as I saw ‘im in holding, she’s waiting for Harry to ring to go and get him but she’s not gonna be blindsided.”

“Thank you,” Robert kisses Aaron’s forehead and Aaron leans into him and Robert puts all of that aside for a moment to just wrap Aaron up in another big hug.

It’s strange how small Aaron can make himself when he takes up so much space in Robert’s life. How dull he feels in Robert’s arms when he’s usually so vibrant.

“Let’s go home.” He isn’t asking, he’s getting his phone out to text someone to get him a clear path, no one to see them as he takes Aaron’s hand and doesn’t let it go until he puts him in the passenger seat of the Porsche and he gets in the other side to drive. Even then, Robert starts up the car, puts it into gear and picks up Aaron’s hand again.

 

 

 

 

 

Aaron sits on the settee with a glass of whiskey, holding it more than drinking it and Robert feels powerless. Dead kid on one hand and trying to protect Robert on the other. He’s exhausted, and Robert can’t do anything to make that better for him.

He does bring Aaron’s PJs down, takes his glass from him and starts unbuttoning his shirt, his tie lost ages ago. He pulls the starchy fabric over Aaron’s shoulders, gets it caught on his wrists where he didn’t undo those buttons and Aaron just watches him as he picks up each wrist and frees them before the shirt comes completely off and Robert puts his t-shirt on him by pulling it ungracefully over his head. Aaron helps put his arms into the top and he gets a kiss for it, the positive reinforcement gets him to take off his belt and shuffle his trousers off and help to put his shorts on. Comfiness assured, Robert gives Aaron back his drink and pauses when gentle fingers touch his wrist.

“Ta, Rob.”

Robert smiles affectionately at him, “I’m here for you, Aaron, always, alright?”

Aaron wraps his arms around Robert’s middle where he’s still standing in front of him and cuddles his face to Robert’s stomach. Robert just brushes his fingers through Aaron’s hair as he rubs his cheek against his shirt.

Slowly, Aaron stops, just leans his face on Robert’s belly and Robert tugs softly on his hair, “Time for bed, hmm?”

Aaron nods against his shirt, and Robert takes his drink back again as Aaron stands up to pass him to go upstairs, except he doesn’t. He waits for Robert at the bottom and Robert puts the glass down before he follows Aaron up to their room.

Their bed seems massive as Aaron lays on it, knees curled up to his chest, waiting expectantly for Robert to join him. Robert just toes his shoes off and slides in behind Aaron on top of the duvet.

“I’ve got work to do in a bit, but I’ll stay until you fall asleep,” Robert tells him and kisses the vulnerable skin of Aaron’s neck as they snuggle up to spoon.

Robert slings his arm of Aaron’s waist like he normally would and pushes the duvet down enough that he can rub his thumb across Aaron’s stomach as he breathes into his shoulder. He presses a kiss to the fabric and Aaron wriggles a bit further back into him, so Robert hooks his chin over Aaron’s shoulder and noses under his jaw.

“Love you,” he tells him quietly.

“Love you too.”

Slowly, Aaron’s breathing evens out and he’s asleep.

Robert gets up, untangling himself from his husband’s arms with no small amount of pain. How dare anyone do this to Aaron, to his proud, kind and loving heart.

There isn’t a lot Robert can do to help, but there are things he can do to make himself feel better.

 

 

 

 

The first is that he meets Kim at the station, leaving Aaron a note if he should wake up while Robert’s gone. The second is to check his voicemail for any new information, and there’s a couple of people who have seen ‘sketchy’ stuff, but if that’s true or they’re looking to get something out of it, that’s another thing entirely, that’s why he needs Harry. He needs someone to back his judgement.

The third. The third is why he left his better half at home.

Drag his family through the dirt, there are consequences. Harry might have talked him out of it. Aaron would have. Neither of them is here and seeing Kim, Harry’s wife, curled up even smaller than Aaron until she sees Robert and buries herself in his arms out of fear for her husband, Robert can’t help but want to blame someone.

One someone. That someone who keeps railroading Aaron for no other reason than he wants to get in the ring with Robert.

They don’t have names, the people he employs. Robert neither cares or is required to know. But he makes sure that Harry is still in custody when it happens and he himself is on camera at the police station holding his distraught wife.

 **Done** , the text reads.

Round one to Robert.

 

 

 

 

 

Robert goes home after putting Harry back in Kim’s arms, bail secured, and she cries gratefully into his chest. He doesn’t point out that it’s his fault that Harry is even in there as Harry shakes his hand with the firm implication of thank you.

The sun is already trying to peek out when he finally pours himself a cup of rich, obnoxious coffee and Aaron comes down rubbing his sleepy eyes because he could smell it upstairs.

Given everything that’s happened, Robert chooses not to lie, “I did something.”

Aaron frowns, struggling to wake up, “What?”

“I hurt someone.”

“Who?” Aaron is firm, but from the look on his face, he already knows.

“I’m not sorry.” Robert puts down his cup to pour Aaron one.

“You know you’ve made it worse, right? He’s gonna come running at you now.”

“He hurt Harry and Kim, and he hurt you,” Robert tells Aaron like he’s reading him their shopping list just to check if he’s forgotten anything.

“Can he even walk?” Aaron glares as Robert puts in a splash of milk and one sugar before putting it in front of him.

“Of course, I didn’t want him battered.”

“Just clumped ‘round the ear’ole,” Aaron picks up the cup, fuming more than the steam coming off the coffee.

Robert kisses Aaron on the lips and Aaron kisses him back; a good sign. He’s not that mad about it.

“He was coming for me whatever happened, this just makes me feel better.”

“You’re a terrible person.”

“I’m your terrible person.”

 _And ain’t that the truth_.

“Robert, you can’t pay to have people, _coppers_ , beaten up in an investigation near your club. A rape and murder investigation.”

“I can, and I did,” Robert gives Aaron one more kiss and goes to head up with his cup to get dressed.

“You remember what we say to each other, Robert, what we always say to each other?”

 _Don’t make me bury you_.

Robert wants to take a mental snapshot of this morning. His irate, sleep soft and cuddly husband with two fingers around his coffee cup as he moves it around on the side as he talks. He’s perfect.

For the first time, Robert doesn’t respond the same way. _You won’t_.

“Sometimes we don’t get what we want.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An update? Wow. Who knew. Basically, I just wanted to say to anyone who doesn't follow me on my tumblr and my excessive posts about this one AU** I'm trying to write and finish as one entity, I'm doing that. I'm about 38k into it, and it's ruining my life, but by golly, I'm determined to finish it. It's sucking up a lot of my energy, so my other updates are falling a bit to the wayside, and for that, I apologise. They are coming. Just...slowly, like a filter.
> 
> **Aaron's a tattoo artist, Robert is a chef; it's the enemies to friends to lovers fic that some people wanted, including me, but probably won't once it's done. XD


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aaron sets his priorities.

Aaron stares at his coffee cup before he takes it upstairs after Robert.

Robert putters, picking out things from his wardrobe for later, Saturday nights are always big nights, and then something more comfortable for running errands this afternoon.

“We’re not going to talk about what you just said to me?” Aaron asks as he bundles himself back up under their duvet.

“What’s to talk about?” 

Robert’s nonchalance is aggravating. Aaron puts his cup on the bedside table before getting up on his knees, shuffling between Robert’s clothes, hands pulling on his hips to stop him from moving around.

“You plan on goin’ somewhere?” Aaron tries to keep the vulnerable tinge out of his voice, but he can’t. Robert, at least in his mind, thinks that something could, or might, happen to him.

Robert wraps his arms around Aaron’s neck and gives him a little kiss, longer than the one in the kitchen, but still short.

“No, but we have to be realistic.”

Aaron tucks his hands under Robert’s bum and holds onto his thighs, “You think things will get that bad?”

Another kiss.

“I don’t know, but I don’t want to lie to you,” Robert scrubs his fingers over Aaron’s beard with a smile on his face, “I don’t plan to play by any rules this time.”

Ignorant of his suit and his jumper, Robert climbs onto the bed with Aaron and keeps going until he knocks Aaron onto his back, leaning over him on all fours.

“Robert…”

 _Don’t. Whatever it is you’re doing, just don’t_.

Robert ignores whatever Aaron might say in favour of kissing his chest, his heart, over his t-shirt while pushing one hand up under it. The exposed skin gets the same treatment, from Aaron’s belly down to the waistband of his pyjamas.

It would be a lie to say he doesn’t want to be touched. Robert hooks his fingers over Aaron’s shorts, and they disappear. It feels like forever since they just _were_ but it’s only been a few days.

Robert leans back over him, and waits for some kind of signal to continue. Aaron looks at him in yesterday’s clothes, hair sticking up every which way because he’s been tugging on it and not sleeping in their bed where he’s supposed to be. It bolsters Aaron. He wrestles Robert’s clothes off him, and he drags his fingers over Robert’s back as they kiss, mouths open and teasing like they’re trying to relearn each other. Except Robert knows how to touch him, when to edge, when to tease, when to give him what he needs.

It’s relaxing in how it fulfils Aaron, with him clutching tightly onto Robert’s shoulders as he hides his face in his collarbone, one hand moving down to practically haul Robert in as tight as possible as they both shake and crumble. Robert tilts Aaron’s face up, cheeks brushing together and their lips meet one last time before Robert eases himself off and over onto his side of the bed with an ‘oof’.

Aaron sits up, and Robert’s fingers trace his spine from where he can still reach while lying down. Aaron turns back around and holds Robert’s face in the grip of his fingertips, jaw trapped as Aaron slides his lips over his in three consecutive kisses. He gets up, and Robert misses him when he reaches out to try and grab him.

“Aaron—”

Aaron takes his ring off its chain and slips it onto his finger, “I’m just gonna shower.”

He leaves the chain on the table against the wall by the door of their en-suite, and when he looks back, Robert is watching him. It’s not a tense kind of stare, rather, instead, it’s contemplative. Aaron ignores it and picks out a towel from the ottoman at the end of the bed and heads into their bathroom.

After fifteen years, he thought he might get sick of being close to Robert, but that day has never come. Their sex life has always been the way they impart the things that they want to say but can’t. And Aaron isn’t willingly blind to Robert taking him in, his green eyes focused on every inch of him, so intently that Aaron had to look away. He isn’t ashamed of his body, but he couldn’t face the scrutiny of Robert looking at him and finding him lacking. In any way.

Robert doesn’t leave him alone in the shower. He puts his towel down next to Aaron’s and opens the shower door to hem him in. They cuddle and wash each other’s fronts and backs, peppered with kisses on each other’s wet skin and mouths. It’s not an abnormal Saturday for them, but Aaron can’t shake the feeling of Robert’s words.

Robert won’t leave him, but it doesn’t mean he won’t be taken from Aaron. They keep running in circles about Finn Barton and how he’s going to ‘go after’ Robert, but it was just talk, in the sense that, now, it feels like Robert is bunking down, preparing for war, and Aaron is his sweetheart that he has to say goodbye to.

 _Fuck that, I’m your husband, and we go into the trenches together_.

If a little while ago was soft and intimate, Aaron gets on his knees to be rough. He plays Robert’s body like a guitar, strumming the powerful cords until the music he desires comes from it. He doesn’t have to swallow but he does. Aaron leaves Robert panting in the spray as he ties his towel around his waist to go and get dressed.

He checks his phone, and as expected he’s been informed of Finn’s ‘accident’. He isn’t interviewing today, so he decides on plain clothes to check in on Finn. He has to, or it would look suspicious.

Robert finally emerges, pink and flushed. Aaron accepts his kiss and the generous swipe of his tongue into Aaron’s mouth as he holds Aaron’s hip to stop him from going anywhere. He opens his eyes as Robert nudges his nose with his, so he kisses the tip of it.

“Gotta go to work, see Barton.” His tone is disapproving. They could be spending more time together, but instead, Aaron has to do this.

Robert pats his bum, “Okay, go, _do_.”

Aaron is mostly satisfied until he sees a droplet of water on Robert’s ribs that he licks up and then bites over his nipple, hard.

“Ow!” Robert shoves at him, and Aaron laughs, picking up the bare essentials, and going into the other room to get dressed. Robert needs the space and the products to faff. He’s done and sorted, and Robert is putting wax in his hair when Aaron goes to put his towel in the wash bin.

Aaron takes the final five minutes he can have with Robert by sitting behind him on the bed, his legs bracketing Robert as he holds loosely onto his waist and his cheek rests on Robert’s back.

“Dinner later?” Robert asks him as he’s teasing the front of his hair up.

“What, out?”

Robert hums, “A proper date night.”

It’s been ages since they’ve been properly out, “And what? We get a hotel?”

“If you want?”

Aaron has fond memories of Robert in hotels, even if it’s not why they were there. Aaron wanted Robert, wanted to be with him, but neither one of them could afford being found out as ‘queer’. At first, it was what he wanted, his own struggle to accept himself made it easy to want to hide, but as he and Robert started to want to build a life together, those nights away where more like chains around their necks. Now, every once in a while, they honour the tradition. They go out to a new place then stay in a hotel to have sex.

Robert stops what he’s doing to hold up Aaron’s hand, “You could wear your ring.”

The ‘ _I could introduce you as my husband’_ is silent.

“If I get off work early, then yeah, let’s do it.”

He kisses the corner of Robert’s mouth when he offers it to him and before Robert says, “I’ll sort it out.”

“Bye. Work.”

“Bye, Aaron.”

 

 

 

 

Aaron would be a fool to believe that it’s anything other than a distraction, but he’ll take it. He loves Robert and he wants to spend time with him. He remembers that he stupidly left his chain indoors and has to slip his ring into his glove compartment.

He puts his little Golf in gear and heads to the hospital. He had Pete text him the details since he’s the most amenable of the Barton’s and the least likely to get up Aaron’s nose. There’s already a ton of balloons that Aaron has to fight through, and Finn’s mum, Emma, is sitting at his bedside like he’s the walking wounded. To be fair, his face looks rough; one eye cut and swollen shut, his lip split, and probably one or two cracked ribs. Could be better, could be worse.

“Well? What are you doing to put that man away?” She demands.

Aaron frowns, and Finn tries to grab his mum’s arm, “Excuse me?”

“Robert—”

“Mum!”

Aaron tilts his head, “Robert Sugden? You think he did this? I was told you couldn’t see your attackers.”

Aaron would usually despise having to play his superior officer card, but it looks bad for Finn, telling his mum that someone’s done it without investigating the facts. It looks bias, even if it’s true.

“He didn’t, but he knows.”

Finn looks like he rues the day telling his mum anything, and Aaron can just think: _good_. It’s one thing to suspect, it’s another thing to talk police business with your family, your civilian family like he has.

“Aaron—”

He doesn’t ever remember saying Finn could call him by his first name, but he lets it slide as Finn carries on, “The timing is just too suspect. An investigation I’m on, near his club?”

“Right, yeah, where a drug addict was murdered,” He doesn’t mention Theo’s assault, “His dealer could have done it, another addict for his score, you don’t know. Which is why you don’t throw around accusations.”

Emma gets ready to start up, and Aaron turns to her, “He hasn’t been brought in for questioning because it hasn’t been relevant. Going after an influential businessman without proof puts him and everyone like him on edge. They all clam up, guilt or no guilt. You used to know that, Barton.”

“And I don’t want some someone’s guilt. I want justice for Theo.”

Aaron feels that deep in his soul as soon as he says it. He wants to put away whoever did this to Theo not only because he wants to know why, he does, but also because Theo deserves this. To be humanised in death the way he wasn’t in life. Everyone in their own ways had given up on him. Some, rightly so. Aaron won’t. Aaron will stand by him.

“You share details of a case again, even your suspicions, I’ll put you up on reprimand, Barton. It’s not done for a reason. Hope you feel better soon.”

His whole ‘being a comfort’ plan went straight out the window. But either way, Finn will either pack it in, or lockdown further, and either way Aaron knows what to look for.

 

 

Pete catches him on his way out, “Dingle.”

“Barton.”

“You think there’s anything to this? Sugden?”

Aaron can see Pete wanting to find a villain to face, to blame for what happened, “No. It’s like your brother said, he’s got us up his arse 24/7 right now, looking at his people and his club. It’d be a stupid move.”

Pete nods and offers Aaron his hand, which he shakes, “Thanks, man.”

“No problem.”

 

 

 

Aaron fills out some paperwork on some other cases before he heads home, Robert greets him with their bags packed, and his smile falters when he sees Aaron.

“What?” He asks.

Aaron shakes his head, “Nothin’.”

He thought the lies would get easier, that the people didn’t matter. Pete though, Pete is a good man for all his faults and his brothers’ ineptitudes.

None of it matters though. Not when this man exists. Soft, warm, and a little bit daft. Robert is his whole world.

He wraps his arms around Robert’s neck for a slow kiss that Robert laughs into, arms winding around Aaron’s back.

He mumbles against Aaron’s mouth, “Okay, early start, I can get behind that.”

 

 _If there’s a war coming, hand me a gun_ , Aaron thinks as he lets Robert push him back against the wall next to their front door. His trousers are loosened and dropped to his ankles.

He made a promise, _till death do us part_ , to Robert and no one else.


	13. Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robert’s perspective on their first kiss, and how it relates to now. [Interlude]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is part of the main canon of the story, but it’s not strictly a chapter as such. It doesn’t move the story forwards in any real way plot-wise but we get a bit more emotionally where Robert is at.
> 
> Formatting is kind of an issue as I’m working on an iPad Air until I get my laptop back hopefully midweek, so please know I’m crying inside. It’s awful y’all. Awful.

Circa 2003

 

Moving in his few meagre belongings, Robert feels a sense of satisfaction that he’s never really had before. This is _his_. He doesn’t have to share it, didn’t have to fight tooth and nail with Andy to get it, it’s all his, and no one, except his boss, can take it away from him. He’s even doing pretty well on that front, invited to sit in on more business - oriented meetings. Nothing of any real value, he knows, but Robert soaks up everything he can, repeating back the necessary oohs and aahs , all the while mentally calculating how _he_ would do it better. Because one day, he will.

The only fly in his ointment isn’t even really a fly. It’s ache inside his chest whenever he looks at Aaron.

Two years younger than Robert, he’s rougher around the edges than Robert’s ever been. It’s like he’s cemented himself up in shards of glass and nails and he isn’t willing to take it down for anyone. Clad in his armour of a tracksuit and a snapback, Aaron looks like any other teenager on the street. What makes Aaron different is what makes him good at his job, and that’s that he’s always thinking. He’s rash in his execution a lot, and has been pulled up a few times for it, but there is always something behind his blue eyes. Like he’s keeping a tally on every person he meets, and they only have so many chances before he unleashes hell upon them. Robert wonders how that would look, to see the McFarlanes on the receiving end of Aaron’s ire.

It's that challenge and seeing Aaron everyday, constantly pushing back at everyone and everything, that makes Robert feel like he can’t help but want a piece, wanting to know what it takes to get Aaron to give. Because Robert gets it. Even beyond his laser focus and conflicting demeanour, Aaron is so much more. He has a childish sense of humour that brightens Robert’s day rather than irritates him. He too is willing to learn, but fears failing more, so he hangs back. He has an unbending moral code and sense of himself that Robert envies because Robert knows he doesn’t have it. He’ll do whatever it takes, however it takes. He knows full well part of his attraction to Aaron is coveting something good for himself.

Still, in a lot of ways Aaron is like Robert was at sixteen; introverted, gobby, too cool for everything. Not much has changed for him either, except for his burgeoning feelings that he only made worse by kissing Aaron when he caught him with a full page spread from _Playgirl._  Robert’s own experience with blokes extends to some questionable fumbling and one instance of sex that he replays often but lacks any emotional connection to. Harry at a house party with the dirty blonde hair and brown eyes when Robert was 17. He can’t help but compare him to Aaron, how much softer he was. Genial. Aaron would probably turn up with a scowl on his face, sit in the corner, and dare anyone to approach him.

However, of anything, it’s Aaron’s kiss that he remembers in crystalline clarity. How shocked Aaron was to start with, Robert filled up with false bravado because _Aaron was looking at naked men and he tried to hide it_ before taking the unprecedented opportunity. Aaron kisses like he does everything, contradicting himself, his rough exterior giving way to softness as he gave into Robert’s kiss. Robert laughed because despite Aaron’s initial confusion, he did try to reciprocate, bottom lip trembling as he attempted to cover Robert’s lips. Robert leant away and then back in, trying again, and Aaron moved a little closer, chased a little more and Robert got greedy, pulled him over and outpoured more of his secret feelings into their closed pressed mouths. Aaron slipped away for the length of a breath and Robert took him back with a lick against his lips. Things escalated with groping hands that never did much more than shift fabric, but their mouths slipped and slid more, and Robert could feel the tiniest pinpricks of Aaron’s intermittent facial hair on his top lip.

He dragged himself away with heavy breathing, hand still on Aaron’s side as he looked at Robert, bewildered, but maybe the slightest bit relieved. He rubbed his thumb reassuringly on Aaron’s t-shirt and then he let him go. Neither one of them acknowledged the crumpled magazine when Aaron got up, they decided to go for a beer and chips, and Robert snuck a glance at Aaron out the corner of his eye as they walked. He kept a level distance from Robert and he was always scanning, always checking to see what’s coming and what has been.

It was clear as day that Aaron isn’t ready for a tumble at a house party, he was barely ready for the kiss Robert essentially stole from him because deep down he knew Aaron had never done it. Robert knew he would always be Aaron’s first. An indelible crack in his wall, just for Robert. He knows it’s selfish, but he doesn’t regret it. He’ll always have those feelings of Aaron wanting him and clutching at him if nothing else. He can even pretend that Aaron wanted him back, not that Robert was just the first bloke who was okay in showing an interest in him.

 

And now Aaron’s round again for a beer and to see Robert’s place, still, as if nothing had happened. Aaron still lives with his mum in the pub, so there’s an element of whimsy to Aaron’s assessment: _Ain’t bad this, is it?_  Robert’s heart skips a beat because kneeling on his second-hand futon, he wants so badly for that to be with him.

Yet, Robert replies, his usual bit of cheek, “It’ll do for now.”

When Aaron takes his beer from him and puts it down next to his, Robert doesn’t dare inhale. Aaron shuffles forward, a bit of fear mixed in with anxiety, he’s so close, but it’s like he can’t transverse that final bit of space between them. Robert waits, he forces himself to because it has to be Aaron’s decision. He has to know for himself that this is really what he wants. Hands come to stroke Robert’s sides, to curl around his hips and cup them like an afterthought, but it’s all Robert can think about. Aaron touching him because _he_ wants to.

It happens, and Aaron completely misses his mark and catches Robert’s chin, but he rectifies it immediately and it’s like sparks just explode inside Robert where their mouths touch. It isn’t a hard kiss or a rough one, but Aaron is firm, pressing, and finally commanding. His fingers dig into Robert’s hips of their own accord as Aaron pushes with his tongue to get inside Robert’s mouth.

Robert skims his hands over Aaron’s top and pushes at his shoulders. Aaron finally gives with a “D’ya not—?”

He can’t believe he’s even saying it, cutting off his chance at his own desires at the knees, “Yeah, but do you?”

Aaron’s face crumples like reality has crashed into him like a wrecking ball through a window.

“I don’t want a few kisses here ‘n there with ya, Aaron. I want ya,” He says, honestly, and Aaron minutely pulls away from him, probably not even enough for him to notice, but Robert does. What he wants isn’t what Aaron wants. At least not yet, if ever.

“See,” Robert smiles sadly, “It’s alright.”

And it is, because as much as he wants him, Robert wants Aaron to be happy, to be okay with himself.

Robert watches the line of Aaron’s Adam’s apple as he swallows, “It ain’t you.”

 _It’s everyone else,_ and he gets it.

“I know,” Robert catches Aaron’s fingers with his hand and he watches as their fingers intertwine like lovers would. “I can wait.”

Aaron doesn’t let him go, so they bed down on the futon, Aaron the little spoon holding their hands in front of his chest and Robert lying with his nose in the crook of Aaron’s neck.

“God, this thing is awful,” Aaron grumbles as he shifts around and shoves back on Robert.

Robert laughs and grabs him with one leg over his, “It’s fine, stop wriggling or I’m throwing ya out.”

“You wouldn’t.”

The faint smell of deodorant in his nose, Robert agrees. He still nudges Aaron with his head, “I don’t stand for fidgets.”

Aaron lets his body slacken with one final wriggle and Robert smiles against his skin, “Ta.”

“It’s still awful.”

“Tell it to the judge.”

 

Circa 2018

 

Robert hasn’t thought about those kisses in years, so when Aaron mentions them in the dim of the hotel room, he’s shunted back to a lifetime ago that has him feeling much older than thirty-three.

“I wanted you so much,” Robert admits, Aaron turning on his side, wedding band glinting in the moonlight. Robert rubs his finger over it because how could he have known then that they’d work out? That Aaron would one day be his past, present and future. His husband. “I stole your first kiss with a bloke.”

Aaron laughs, happy and his cheeks creasing, “you had a lot of my firsts.”

Robert is glad that, actually, when he looks at Aaron there is very little of that teenager in him, and part of that is him. How they’ve grown together.

“I wanted to be your only. Even then.”

Aaron blinks and Robert doesn’t know why it hits him like this, maybe it’s the situation, or the nostalgia of the hotel room, they wouldn’t start that up until later. A stupid drug run gone bad and Aaron bullying Robert onto the futon before they made up with slick kisses. But it all pours out of him.

“I knew you were special. Not to them, too gobby for that.”

Aaron laughs again, and Robert can’t help but touch the corner of his mouth.

“Special to me.”

“I didn’t know what your game was,” Aaron admits and he shuffles in closer to Robert on the bed, white sheets stark against his thighs.

“No game, I was just done for.”

“What? Mentally married at 18?”

Robert snorts, “No. Yours. Any way you’d have me.”

It’s true. Robert had lovers, people he liked, but he never gave them the time of day, not when Aaron was such a big part of his life. He was just waiting. Waiting for the day Aaron would say: ‘I want you too.’

“Woulda ya? Woulda ya have waited?” The implication being longer, longer than how it had originally been. _Forever?_

Aaron kisses his bullet scar and strokes it with his index finger.

He thinks about it. How he did wait for Aaron to figure himself out. He would have gone on how he was, maybe had a wife, maybe a husband, a nice little life, but one forever tempered with the one truth that he did, and would always, love Aaron. That the moment he asked, Robert would have gone.

“Yes.”

Robert is who he is meant to be when he’s with Aaron. Never more secure in his knowledge of himself. Since he was eighteen, Robert has held onto that more than anything else in his life.

When he rolls himself on top of Aaron, it’s what fuels his kiss, the smooth touches on Aaron’s skin, the thick beating pulse inside him. His heart, his body, every promise he’s ever made. They belong to his husband.

 

They both lie back, trembling and spent.

The ground continues to be shaky and untenable. Robert doesn’t know what’s going to happen. All that there is and ever is is Aaron. Protecting Aaron, keeping Aaron safe. Aaron thinks that it’s his heart that Robert is trying to protect. To hide the reality of it all from him, but it’s not. Aaron thinks that the biggest thing he has to lose is Robert. But Robert knows better. He knows because Aaron is the man he loves. The part Robert truly fears for is his soul. His heart will survive, but to break his soul would rewrite and change the man Robert knows forever.

_Don’t make me bury you—_

_—and watch a monster live in your place._

 


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The post-hotel glow is cut short by work, and Robert slowly amps up his own investigation.

“Were you ever gonna wake me up?” Robert rubs his nose as he stretches his toes towards the end of the bed, arching his back to work out the kinks as Aaron, in his pants, sits on the settee in their hotel room eating scrambled eggs. “Or was it a ploy to steal my eggs?”

There are several other covered plates and he assumes there’s bacon, toast, all the trimmings, but when Aaron gets up and uncovers one, it’s actually American style pancakes and fruit salad.

Robert can’t help but grin as he rolls out from under the duvet to go pick up his breakfast. He kisses Aaron’s temple as he squidges passed him to sit down on the settee.

The clock reads 7:17 am and they didn’t get to bed until late, “You’re going to work, aren’t you?”

Aaron hums and uncovers another plate which has the aforementioned bacon and toast, “They have more results from Theo’s post-mortem.”

Any other case, Robert might have put his foot down and made Aaron stay. Used all of his husbandly wiles to lure Aaron away and back into bed for time-consuming spooning and goofing around like they normally would when they go away, but even he knows it's a losing battle. It’s not like he hasn’t got things of his own to attend to.

He guesses he’s mourning the slice of normal amongst everything else that’s going on.

Aaron’s radar for it is also surprisingly accurate as he pats Robert’s leg, chewing on a bit of bacon and tilting his head to the side. _Come on_.

Robert looks at his pancakes, buttery and syrupy, and he eats a forkful, Aaron still looking at him.

“There’ll be other hotels, Robert.”

He stabs a strawberry and eats that.

“Robert—”

Putting the plate down on the coffee table in front of them, Robert’s pretty much done with it now.

“Don’t be like that,” Aaron sighs. He puts his down and turns into Robert, knee coming up in front of him.

“Be like what? Sad that I won’t get to spend time with my husband?” He really isn’t trying to guilt Aaron, he just thought they’d have the morning at least to fart-arse about. Have a couple of hours of just plain nonsense.

 _I’m selfish, and I want you here with me_.

“We came to stay so we’d have time together.”

“Yeah, you had hours of me,” Aaron bites his lip to hide his grin, and Robert huffs out a little laugh.

“It’s not enough,” Robert pushes Aaron so that he puts his leg back down and accepts Robert’s weight when he swings his leg over to sit on Aaron’s lap. Aaron’s hands immediately go to his thighs to pull Robert in closer before they slide up to hold his back.

“I can’t be late,” Aaron tells him.

Robert wonders if Aaron can taste his pancakes when he kisses him. It’s a leisurely, unhurried kiss, meant to show love, and Aaron accepts it with ease, his fingers still relaxed against Robert’s skin as their mouths press and sigh as Aaron slaps Robert’s thigh to get him to move off.

He gets up with no small amount of grumbling and picks up his plate while Aaron goes for a shower. If some of Aaron’s bacon disappears, then that’s the toll of leaving Robert emotionally unsatisfied.

 

 

Robert manages to find a robe to cover himself with and opens the door to the concierge who has brought Aaron a clean suit. _Correction, a new suit_. It’s dark navy, and some discretion has been used on the other man’s part to find something suiting Aaron’s needs, his measurements and trying to find something off-the-rack, but it’s all for the better. Robert tips him handsomely and gets a surprised look even though it only reaches the concierge’s eyes and not the rest of his face.

“My husband isn’t made for off-the-rack,” Neither of them are, as they’re both weirdly proportioned; Robert with his height and breadth of his shoulders, Aaron with his dedication to being fit and active on duty, they don’t suit it at all. “But this is pretty close.”

“Of course, Mr Osbourne.”

Robert closes the door and hangs the suit up off the back of the wardrobe door and drinks some of the orange juice Aaron ordered. He’s already sent down for coffee so that it will be nice and hot for them.

“You gonna shower?” Aaron asks as he comes out of the bathroom, Robert sighing at the missed opportunity of Aaron in a towel.

“Yeah, just waiting for the coffee.”

“You’ll have a heart attack one day.”

“If you’re trying to entice me to the gym, it’s not working.”

Aaron rolls his eyes, stops when he sees some of his bacon is gone but carries on to grab a bit of toast. He munches on it before he sits on the bed, half reclining on it.

Robert nudges him over so that he can get on too, rather than going around to the other side, and Aaron huffs over it, but Robert paints poor designs on Aaron’s moist skin and lets it dampen his cheek when he cuddles his shoulder.

He gets a kiss on his forehead and he loses Aaron to work again, so Robert flops onto his back and stares at the ceiling.

 _Time to get a move on then, hey_.

 

 

Aaron won’t be in early by any means, but he has to make time to go back home and get his car. Robert keeps his back to the front door so that he doesn’t have to see Aaron leave again. Truthfully, he was feeling tender, but having seen Aaron, seen him be the most himself he’s been in ages in that hotel room, Robert’s able to let go a little. Doesn’t mean he wants to see Aaron shut the door and go to work, leaving him all alone.

He feels Aaron’s beard on his neck before he feels his arms around his waist.

“Bye, Robert.”

When Robert doesn’t respond, Aaron scratches him with his beard, rubbing it into the vulnerable crease of his neck, “Oi!”

“Say bye, Rob.”

“Bye, Rob.”

Aaron mutters _twat_ under his breath and pulls Robert’s hips one way then the other before letting him go.

Robert turns and tugs on the back of Aaron’s blazer as he’s going and gives him a peck on the lips when he turns around.

“Bye, Aaron.”

They both smile, even though they’re both a tiny bit sad to not get to spend more time together but needs must.

They are who they are.

 

 

It’s what sends Robert to Drive in the middle of the day, answering emails on his work computer and getting Harry to bring him three more coffees than Aaron would approve of.

Being in this business, Robert has learned he doesn’t like or believe in coincidences. He gets raided for a stash of drugs? A drug addict gets assaulted and murdered? Maybe he’s off and they’re not linked, but they’re not ‘coincidental’. Maybe in another life, he’d have been a copper by Aaron’s side.

He voices that opinion to Harry, who just laughs at him, “You’ve got no patience.”

“And Aaron has?” Robert has seen Aaron whinge and moan when he’s had to wait to be served by Charity in the pub. Different thing entirely, but Aaron Dingle is not the great saint of waiting quietly that Harry would believe.

“You ever hear about instant gratification?” Harry asks him as he avoids the settee and comes to sit in one of the chairs in front of Robert’s desk.

Robert raises an eyebrow and picks up his cup, “I’ve heard of it.”

“Er, gross, ta, but it ain’t just about that. You think of it, you and Aaron are working on the same thing by your reckoning.”

Robert hums.

“The first sign of trouble, with him, with me, you got the boys out and had a pop at Barton.”

“Your point?” _Make it quick and sharp_.

“Aaron is playing the long game. Gathering evidence, working out the who’s, the what’s, the why’s. Emotional, but collected. He won’t be satisfied until whoever did this is in prison. You were happy the moment you got the call Barton was on his way to A&E.”

“That was—”

“Personal, I know. My point exactly. Doesn’t mean you’re a bad bloke, Robert, just you approach shit differently.”

“Do you miss it? Being police?” Robert watches a cloud come over Harry’s face.

“Yes and no.”

Harry sighs and stands up, “I didn’t work with men like Aaron. I worked with men like you.”

_Illegal, rotten to the core?_

“You never pretended to be one of the good guys, you never sold me a lie. And, when it’s said and done, you _aren’t_ a bad bloke. I’d rather work for a crooked Robert Sugden, than a bent force.”

“Cheers, Harry.”

Harry smiles, “Any time, mate.”

 

 

It’s food for thought when Robert is planning out more deals and setting up meetings with suppliers over Theo’s dealer. They send Mikey up to him, who is looking a lot better, and he’s even smiling when he sees Robert.

“Boss.”

Robert doesn’t acknowledge it with a response, but Mikey stands and waits, almost vibrating. He’s still shuffling paperwork when Mikey can’t hold it in any longer, “ _Boss_.”

Mikey shrinks back at Robert’s glare, but he doesn’t retreat completely, “Word on the street is that Leone’s dealer was Sandross.”

It’s not a name that came up in his digging, so it catches his attention, he waves Mikey to continue, and he takes a big breath before he starts rambling, his English becoming more accented, “He knew the _politsiya_ would be looking for him, so he wanted his name gone. He offered more product if people would hide him.”

Sandross is a slippery eel, Robert doesn’t like him and won’t have his suppliers sell to him. Robert is sure he cuts good product with bad to make more money off it.

“So, he’s gone to ground?” Robert grunts, but Mikey looks more excited.

“We, the others, knew you wanted him.”

Robert narrows his eyes, “I do.”

Mikey rubs the back of his neck, “We took him, put him in the warehouse.”

“Did he trip?”

Another rub, “He fell many times. Mostly on his face.”

Robert smiles, wide, “Good.”

 

 

 

Robert sends Aaron a text to say he might be home after closing. It gives him time to get his gun out of the safe at work, its holster alongside it before he tucks them both under his suit jacket.

He’s heading out when he sees Barton, Ross this time, in the downstairs part of his club. Harry stands off to one side, ready to step in, and Barton eyes him warily.

“I’m busy, what do you want?” Robert wants him gone and gone quickly.

“Not a very nice way to talk to the police while you’re under investigation.”

The arrogance riles Robert up more than it should, “I didn’t know I was and is that not DI Dingle’s case? Or are you poaching from inside your own ranks now?”

“No, no poaching, just think it’s interesting my brother works tons of cases, no harm to a fly, comes within ten feet of you and gets the shit kicked out of him.”

Robert laughs, “Your brother was never in ten feet of me. Let me cut this merry-go-round short, shall I? Matthew Leone was seen at my club on the night of his death. But he was also picked up on CCTV well after he left here.”

He knows because Harry told him they showed him timestamped pictures.

“He was a drug addict and I can’t police my club any more than I have to try to contain drug transactions. It happens, but it happens a lot less than anywhere else. Maybe he went to get drugs after he left, and it went wrong—”

Robert internally shudders at how wrong.

“But it wasn’t here, and it wasn’t my fault. If your brother was a better copper, he’d see that.”

Ross tries to go for Robert, but Harry steps in, putting his bulk between them, “You need to leave.”

“You’re lying—”

“I’m not, and that’s it isn’t it?” Robert can’t help but get those last digs in, “Your brother’s a moron trying to pin it on me and letting actual criminals go free. You should be embarrassed.”

Harry catches Ross under his armpits as he swears blind. Ross manages to get himself under control, but Harry still body walks him to the door and shoves him outside.

“Get the car, would you, Harry?”

Harry looks at him with disapproval.

“What? Did I lie? No.”

“Two words: instant gratification,” Harry warns him as he goes to get the keys to the work Mercedes.

Robert sighs. Maybe Harry’s right, but it'll have to wait. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Robert's penchant for using other names at hotels holds true, and because he's a nerd, he goes with Mr Osbourne, in honour, of BTVS's Daniel 'Oz' Osbourne. 
> 
> Politsiya is Russian for police.


End file.
